A Fine Line
by Pen Against Sword
Summary: When Yuffie Kisaragi dies, Vincent Valentine vows to retrieve her from the lifestream. Even if it means losing everything in the process. Winner of best completed fic on Genesis Awards.
1. Chapter 1

Vincent breathed deeply, sighing as the acrid hospital scent hit his delicate sense of smell. Mixed with the stench of chemicals was a sick-person odor – urine, sweat, blood. Death.

The steady beep of Yuffie's heart monitor sounded beside him. As had become his habit in the past few months, Vincent was sitting at Yuffie's sickbed, watching her like a hawk. That was his routine. Wake up in his dingy hotel room, eat a meager breakfast, go to the hospital, and watch Yuffie sleep, waiting for the rare times when she was lucid enough to speak to him. Waiting for her to need a comforting presence.

Truth be told, Vincent wasn't sure when he had become a comforting presence for the young ninja, but for some reason, she wanted him there. So he was there. Tifa had offered him a place to stay above her bar in Edge, but he would rather be where he was needed, even if all he could do was sit for hours on end.

He had some time before the visiting period was over and the nurses would usher him out. He didn't look forward to going back to his lonely hotel room and his cheap TV dinners.

The doctors said the infection was spreading through Yuffie's bloodstream at an accelerated pace. That had been the report a month ago. A month ago, Yuffie had slept less. She had been strong enough to get out of bed occasionally. They pushed her around in the wheelchair when the weather was mild.

The doctors said it was only a matter of weeks – possibly even days – before Yuffie's body gave up completely. She couldn't fight it much longer.

Yuffie Kisaragi – twenty-two years old and the current ruler of Wutai. While she was on her sickbed, the other four of the Five Mighty Gods were ruling in her stead, in shifts. When she died, Staniv would take over for her.

When she died. So negative. So final. It wasn't that they weren't looking for a cure – no, they were desperately searching every corner of the globe, tapping all available resources. But this was something the scientists and the doctors had never encountered before, and despite their best attempts, Yuffie was fading faster than their efforts were yielding results.

Vincent studied her. He often did – what else was there to study in this drab little room? She was always so still. Her skin had lost its healthy tone – it was a sickly yellow, like old parchment. Her hair was longer from the months in the hospital, fanning over her pillow in greasy black webs. Her cheekbones were sharp in her thin face, and there were dark circles under her slightly sunken eyes.

A strand of hair was fluttering in her face, moved by her shallow breathing. Seeing it, he reached forward and brushed it gently out of the way. Where once he had been reluctant to touch anyone, months at her bedside had removed any hesitation on his part. Half a year ago, he had been wary of her enthusiastic attempts to hug him. It didn't matter anymore.

Her eyes twitched under her lids, lashes fluttering. She stirred, breathing changing as her eyes opened and her gaze slid to Vincent. A small smile tugged at her mouth, and she reached for his hand. He took it.

"Hey, Vinnie," she rasped. The tight feeling in his chest – that he hadn't known was there – loosened. She was lucid. Thank Holy. There wouldn't be any screaming, any thrashing. He wouldn't have to hold her down so she wouldn't hurt herself as he called the nurses.

But something happened. She started to cough violently, wheezing. And there was a strange, bubbling quality to each expulsion of air, as if there were liquid in her lungs. Coughing had never been one of her symptoms. He had never seen anything like it – the sheer force of it actually frightened him. Terror gripped his heart as he watched her convulse.

She curled in on herself as he sat there numbly watching her. She balled the crisp white sheet up to her mouth, and when she drew it away, he realized with horror that there was blood staining it. An alarming amount of it.

He almost smashed the help button he hit it so hard, and she dissolved into coughing again. He propped her small frame against his chest, trying to hold her in place, trying to rub her back. Trying to do something, _anything_ useful.

As the nurses entered and hustled him out, her eyes met his, surprisingly clear, and she smiled grimly at him, blood staining her teeth red. His gut twisted.

Vincent waited in the lobby for an hour, head in his hands, calm on the outside, roiling on the inside. Finally, after what seemed like forever to him, a nurse called for him.

"Yuffie is asking for you," she said, voice gentle, yet striking him hard.

When he entered, the nurses and the doctor left, and he sat in his chair by her bed, feeling the familiarity. Her chest rose and fell quickly, her breath harsh in her throat. When he looked into her eyes, he felt something inside of him shatter.

Yuffie was truly dying this time. Right there in front of him. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop it.

He threaded his fingers into her outstretched hand, scooting closer. She was trembling, and he was more scared than he had ever been in his entire life.

"Vince, I – "

He held up his claw. "No, don't speak. Save your strength. You have to use that to get better."  
"I'm not gonna get better, Vincent."

"You are," he insisted, even as his mind screamed at him. _Liar!_

She cleared her throat, wheezing a little. "I have to say this."

He stared as she summoned the last of her energy.

"Tell Cid he can't have his pick of my materia. I don't care if he wants Knights of the Round. I stole that one from Cloud, so he's getting it back." Vincent closed his eyes briefly at the stab of pain in his chest. He really didn't want to hear this. "Tell him if he wants, though, he can have my mastered mime. And all my luck materia. That bastard's gonna need it when he proposes to Shera." Her breath whistled, her face contorting as all the talking took its toll. "And tell Cloud to treat Tifa right or I'll haunt his stupid butt. And tell Marlene I'm sorry I didn't get to teach her how to walk on her hands, but if she keeps practicing she won't fall on her face as much. Barret – tell Barret not to let work kill him 'cause that's just lame. Tell Red XIII I said 'bye, and I hope Reeve will make him a phone that he can use without thumbs. Vincent…"

At her hesitation, he raised his eyebrows.

"Thank you for staying with me for all these months. You could've been doing anything else but staying in this crappy place, but you were here with me instead. I think you might be a little cuckoo, but… thanks." She coughed a bit, trying to regain control. "Thanks for being my friend, Vincent."

Vincent's brow furrowed. Friend. Was he Yuffie's friend? After six months… he had to be. He'd never even thought about it before.

She groaned. "Vince, it hurts."

He swallowed. "I know, Yuffie."

"Don't go anywhere on me."

"I won't."

She smiled softly, a shadow of her former grin.

Twenty-two minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, Yuffie Kisaragi's hand went limp, and her heart went still.

Twenty-two minutes and thirty-nine seconds later, Vincent Valentine cried.

It was the first time in thirty years.

-

Mysteriously, the day before the body of Yuffie Kisaragi was to be burned, it disappeared from the ceremonial holding building. The guards were found unconscious that morning, on the ground where they had fallen, weapons forgotten. They never knew what hit them.

-

The door to Yuffie's little house burst open and Tifa skidded in. Vincent had been staying there, awaiting the funeral. She found him sitting at the low table in the kitchen, staring blankly at the wall.

"Vincent!" She was breathless from running. "Yuffie's body – it's gone!"

"Gone?" he asked, eerily calm.

"Yes, _gone_," she said, trying not to shake him. "We can't find it _anywhere_, and no one saw anything." Tifa's face was a mix of fear, excitement, and anger. "Who would steal a body?"

Silence hung heavy in the air before Vincent said, "Who indeed."

Tifa stepped closer to him, staring. "Vincent… what… ? Doesn't this bother you at all? Someone stole Yuffie's body, Vincent! _Someone stole her body!_" This time, she actually did touch him, grabbing him by the collar.

His face was a cool mask, and at that moment, Tifa noticed his eyes. There wasn't any sadness there. He'd spent months at Yuffie's side, watching her slowly waste away, and yet those weren't the eyes of a grieving man. This was the look of a man with a purpose.

"Vincent," she said slowly. "What are you not telling us?" Releasing him, she took a step back.

"Call AVALANCHE."

"What? Why?"

"Call them, Tifa."

His tone brooked no argument, so she did. It wasn't hard getting in touch with them – they were all there to see Yuffie's body off on the river. Wutainese tradition. They trickled in one by one, various questions spilling from their lips.

"Did you find anything?" Cloud was serious and solemn, and anyone could tell that Yuffie's death – and now this body-theft business – was weighing on him.

"Why'd you call us, Tifa?" The lines around Cid's eyes were deeper lately.

Barret barely fit through the door. "Hey, Tifa, did you find – Oh, hey, Vince."

Red XIII padded in shortly afterward, Reeve not far behind him. They stopped short at the congregation before them, sensing the strange mood.

"Vincent," Red XIII growled, "what's going on?"

He looked at them each in turn, his serenity unnerving. "I know," he said, "where Yuffie's body is."

The room exploded into a cacophony of questions and talking.

"Well, damn, Vince, why didn't you say so?" Cid shouted, his cigarette almost falling out of his astonished mouth.

Barret waved his arms wildly. "Where the hell is it then, man? Who took it? When I get my hand on – "

"I took it."

"_What?_" Tifa's hands curled into fists.

Reeve sounded strained as he said, "Vincent, if this is a joke… it's not funny."

"I'm not joking. I took her, and I hid her."

Barret lunged forward, but Cloud blocked him, the First Tsurugi creating an effective barrier between Vincent and the angry gunner.

Vincent was the calm in the middle of the storm. "I hid her where she'll be safe until the time is right."

"Until the time is – huh? Valentine, what the hell're you talkin' about?" Cid hissed. "If you don't make some sense soon, I swear I'm gonna pull out my Venus and _make_ you make some fuckin' sense."

Vincent blinked once, slowly. "I'm going to bring her back."

"That's it – he's off his rocker, and I'm doin' somethin' about it."

This time, it was Red who cut Cid off, his hackles raised. "Let him finish, Cid. Vincent, _explain_. Now." Though Nanaki was defending him, he was clearly not pleased.

"I plan on going to the underworld and taking her soul back."

Silence settled over the room like a shroud. Cloud was the one to break it. "Vincent, that's just a legend. You don't even know if the underworld exists."

"Aerith exists in the Lifestream. She communicates with you, Cloud."

"That doesn't prove anything," Reeve protested. Vincent didn't reply, just folded his arms. "You're doing it anyway, aren't you?"

Vincent's gaze was cutting.

"Yes."


	2. Chapter 2

Vincent fingered the coin in his pocket absently as he stared down at the still, reflective waters of the lake. His own countenance shimmered back at him, pale and stoic, as the sensitive fingers of his right hand ran along the face of the rough gold. He would need this coin for the toll, or else he would get no farther than the Docks.

The water lapped at the bronze tips of his boots, beading along their surface to slip back into the pensive lake. Vincent thought he had never seen something so close to liquid sapphire before in his life. That was the initial opinion that had struck him the first time he had been there, with the rest of AVALANCHE at his side. Emotions roiled in his gut as memories took him back to that time; the time before Sephiroth was defeated; a time of tension and secrets and revelations.

- - - - - - - - - -

"_Aw, but Vinnie, _I _wanted the top bunk!" Yuffie wailed._

_"Yuffie," Vincent said sharply, a tone that was out of character for him. His head was pounding and his thoughts were whirling and he needed to be left alone like nothing else in the world. "You can have it if you would for once shut your mouth."_

_Yuffie glared at him petulantly and stuck out her tongue. "Okay, Cranky-Pants. See how far that gets you with Sephiroth." She deepened her voice to an extremely false-sounding bass. "'Sephiroth, would you, for once, shut your mouth?' Hah! You'd be shish kabob faster than you could say 'Yuffie's sexy.'"_

_Tifa looked over at them, her eyes sharp. "Will you two stop bickering? And Yuffie, Vincent wouldn't ever call you sexy anyway."_

_Yuffie directed her small pink tongue at Tifa as well while the rest of the gang either snickered or sighed and shook their heads. Vincent merely chose a bottom bunk and rolled his back to them all._

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent cleared his mind of these thoughts. Now was not the time to dwell on the past. Now was the time for action. He made sure his cloak was fastened tightly. The extra weight would help.

Taking a deep breath, he sloshed forward into the water and swan-dived in cleanly, with barely a ripple of a splash to indicate his presence beforehand.

The water was ice cold, and as he drifted steadily downward, Vincent kept his crimson eyes locked to the shimmering surface, where the odd-colored sunlight that permeated the City of the Ancients danced along the water. He held his breath for as long as he could while he sank, watching tendrils of his raven-dark hair drift around his face like black spider webs. They were almost artistic.

Feeling his lungs finally give in, he, out of an ancient instinct within all life forms, opened his mouth to suck in air that wasn't there. He gulped water, choking, as what oxygen he had still stored in his lungs escaped as luminous billowing bubbles to the surface. His eyes widened as his body could not breathe and his limbs began to thrash of their own accord, creating more bubbles and disturbing the water currents around him. He only sank more in his panic and he felt the valuable oxygen in his bloodstream being used up as his head began to pound with blood in his thinning veins and capillaries.

Vincent sank deeper as the clutching hands of darkness took his mind.

- - - - - - - - - -

_Reeve stared at Vincent seriously from across the table. Two Turk bodyguards flanked him, stiff and crisp in their company-issued uniforms. Reeve, once the flamboyant personality of a robotic cat, was now one of the leading consultants for Rufus Shinra in a valuable new company: Neo-Shinra._

_Reeve's golden eyes clashed with Vincent's scarlet ones, creating an odd, paradoxical color harmony. "Vincent, I wanted to talk to you about this decision. You're certain this is what you want to do?"_

_Vincent stared back at him calmly, his eyes glittering and hard. "Yes."_

_"How much do you know about how to do this?"_

_"I know that one must find a portal of sorts, a place with which to enter the nether realms. It has to be some place of immense spiritual focus and clarity, a place where the dead are near to the living," Vincent replied steadily._

_Reeve nodded. "You must also…"_

_Vincent waited._

_He winced. "Do you know what the rest of the process is, Vincent?"_

_Vincent shook his head. "I was planning on finding that out very soon."_

_Reeve sighed. "I will just tell you then."_

_"How do you come to know these things, Reeve?"_

_The fingers on one of Reeve's pale hands scratched absently at his goatee. "I read, Vincent. I read a lot."_

_Vincent nodded, inviting him to continue._

_"Vincent, you do have to find an entry point. But once you find that entry point, you must, essentially, kill yourself. You must very nearly die for your spirit to enter the nether realms."_

_Vincent cocked an eyebrow. "'Very nearly'?"_

_Reeve nodded. "You either have to have someone there to revive you from death, or…in your case, Vincent, I think it shall not matter."_

_Vincent's eyebrow remained raised, garnering further explanation._

_"Since you are immortal from your…ah…time with Professor Hojo, that means you cannot die by certain physical means. So, Vincent, if you were to say, shoot yourself in the head, it would probably kill you because you need your brain to organize the healing processes in your body, but if you were to, say, asphyxiate, your body would be intact, even though you would not be breathing, and your system would be put on hold in a way. Essentially, you would be catatonic, in a coma, per se. This, I believe, is how someone of your structure will have to make the journey."_

_Vincent's lips thinned. "And do you know how to get back from the underworld?"_

_"Only by what I have heard in legend."_

_"And, what, precisely, have you heard in legend?"_

_Reeve looked at him. "The same that you have. Nine levels, all must be passed or else your soul and obviously, _her_ soul, is lost forever. You _will_ die if you are to fail in there, Vincent."_

_Vincent nodded. "I am aware of that fact, Reeve."_

_Reeve regarded him thoughtfully. "You do know by folklore what sort of payment is needed, correct?"_

_"That will be no problem. I have enough to pay the ferry master."_

_"I'm not entirely sure any of this will work anyway."_

_Vincent's eyes bored into him intently. "I know."_

- - - - - - - - - -

Consciousness returned to Vincent slowly. Curiously enough, his head did not ache, his lungs no longer hurt, his clothes were dry and he did not exactly _feel_ dead. He checked his side for the Death Penalty and the Cerberus in their holsters. They were there, ready and loaded. A searching hand went to his pocket, where the gold coin rested, safe and sound.

This was, apparently what it felt to be part of the Lifestream.

Vincent, out of old habit and curiosity, began to evaluate his surroundings. He was in a cave of some sort, standing on what looked to be a bank of earth. It seemed to end at one side, dipping down into something that glowed an odd greenish blue onto the walls, shimmering faintly.

To his other side, opposite the odd light, were bones. Piles of bones. Vincent walked over to examine them and found them to be human. There had to be at least thirty skeletons there, cluttered and jumbled until there was no order between what had previously been bodies. Vincent's hand wandered to his pocket and touched the coin again, knowing absently that these people had died because they had been without a ration of gold to pay the toll.

Vincent heard the lap of water and approached the side of the cave that dipped off into that iridescent light. He sidled closer to the edge and saw that the source of the light was actually a river that shimmered a light teal. It was, he realized, a Lifestream river. The lapping of liquid that he heard however, was not caused by the flow of the river itself, it seemed. It actually flowed eerily smoothly, not making a single sound as it drifted to a destination that was unknown, but Vincent could hazard a probably correct guess. The lapping sound was caused by the disturbance a small gondola made as it was approaching his ledge.

Vincent looked further out onto his ledge and saw that there was a ladder that led to a floating platform on the river at the bottom. He didn't hesitate, merely climbing down a few of the rungs and then leaping the rest of the way, landing almost soundlessly on the rotting planks of the platform despite the ugly bronze tips of his boots.

The dark-haired man turned toward the slowly approaching gondola and saw that it was being manned by a figure in a simple black cloak, plain in itself except for its slightly worn and tattered look. Vincent could not see the face of the person, but found himself suddenly glad of this when he saw that the hands on the pole propelling the gondola were rotting and dismembered, pieces of the flesh gone until you could see tendons and bones.

The gondolier gripped the pole tighter and the slowly creeping little craft came to an easy, gliding stop adjacent to the platform Vincent was standing on. Vincent could not see the rest of the pole beneath the water—the surface was almost opaque. It looked like someone had taken pearls, melted them, and poured them in with green and blue dye.

The gondolier reached out one decaying hand and opened it, stretching the disgusting flesh over the bleach-white bones eerily. Vincent resisted the urge to take a step back from the disturbing sight. He had seen many dead, rotting bodies in his lifetime as a Turk and a fighter, but never ones that moved.

Nevertheless, the gunslinger curbed his revulsion and reached into his pocket, bringing out the coin and dropping it into the proffered hand of the gondolier. The gondolier's seemingly faceless hood turned away, directed toward the front, further along the Lifestream river. Vincent, with two quick strides and a graceful half-skip, had landed himself in the gondola. There seemed to be a bench to sit on, but Vincent remained standing, ready for anything. The gondolier disregarded him, opting instead to stare out in front of them, at a destination that Vincent surmised was the way he wanted to go.

He studied the place around him but found it to be very ordinary, except for the Lifestream. It seemed that walls around them curved up into the ceiling in a circular, smooth fashion that indicated a tunnel-like structure. The walls' surface told nothing in particular, being perfectly smooth, indicating that this tunnel wasn't actually natural. Not that Vincent thought it was man-made, considering the circumstances.

The ride dragged on, and Vincent found himself lost in thought.

- - - - - - - - - -

"_Vinnie! Vinnie, are you okay?"_

_Vincent had opened his eyes slowly, groggily, and found them almost stuck together with residue from sleep. That was odd, and indicated that he had been sleeping for quite some time. The first thing that he saw was the pale, drawn face of Yuffie, staring at him intently, her mouth turned down at the corners and dark circles ringing her gray eyes._

_"Oh, gawd, Vinnie, I was so worried." She let out a breath that sounded to Vincent as though she had been holding it for days._

_He tried to speak and found that his voice cracked from disuse. "Water," he rasped._

_Yuffie nodded. "Oh, okay, right away, Vinnie!" She darted off and was back a few moments later, falling all over herself and sloshing water everywhere, trying to get a glass to him. She put soft cool hands behind his neck to support him, as he found he was almost too weak to lean up and drink when she tipped the glass to his lips. He drank appreciatively until she pulled away abruptly._

_"Careful; wouldn't want you to drink too much or you could get sick."_

_He swallowed a few times, working his dry throat. "What happened?"_

_Yuffie's eyes widened. "You mean you don't remember?"_

_It was coming back to him in flashes. There was something about a blue dragon catching them by surprise in the mountains around Icicle Inn. It had gotten to him first, apparently because he was trailing behind the rest of the group, examining the natural mako formations in search of randomly made materia that you could occasionally find there. It was odd that he had been caught by surprise by something so large and not very quiet, but apparently, he had been distracted by something…_

_Vincent looked up as Yuffie waved something red in his face. "Hey, Vince, is it coming back to you now?"_

_It was a red summon materia. In fact, it was a Neo Bahamut that he had found there in the caves. Its power was what had distracted him enough not to notice the dragon come up from behind a large clump of stalagmites. It must have hit him first, before he could reach any of his weapons, despite his fast reflexes._

_Yuffie stared at him gravely. "You remember?"_

_"I remember the dragon."_

_"I guess you don't remember what happened after that then…"_

_Vincent could feel something else about the encounter prickling at the edges of his memory. It felt familiar: animalistic and without thought. Nothing but rage and primeval fury. White hot anger that turned his blood molten and made him… _

_"Chaos," was the only word he said. It was quiet, deadpanned._

_Yuffie nodded, her eyes glistening with something that Vincent did not recognize, her eyebrows bunched together. Suddenly, she threw her arms around his neck, causing him to wince, as his body was still sore from the overtaxing it had probably taken for Chaos to control him while he was badly injured._

_"Oh, Vinnie," she choked out, stifling a sob. "I was so worried."_

_He frowned at her abnormal behavior. Yuffie wouldn't act like this over any normal injury. "How long was I out for?"_

_She pulled back and stared at him, her lips quivering. "Ten days."_

_He had to struggle to keep his emotionless mask on, to keep from gaping at her. That was an especially long time for an immortal body to heal. That was a long time for _any_ body to heal. There were certain things that could kill even him, and he had a feeling that he had just come very close. He examined Yuffie more intently, noticing how wasted her appearance was._

_"Yuffie, what have you been doing this whole time? Have you gotten any sleep?"_

_She looked away, not meeting his gaze. "Tifa made me leave a couple of times." Vincent saw that her eyes had landed on a cot in the corner of the room he was in. _

_"Where are we?"_

_"A hospital in Icicle Inn."_

_He looked at her again, totally bewildered. Why would anyone wait so long at his bedside? He was worthless, so it shouldn't have mattered. Silence reigned._

_"…why?"_

_It was a single word, but had so much question to it, question that his face almost never bespoke. Yuffie's storm-cloud eyes snapped to his like lasers, sharp and unrelenting, and he found himself almost uncomfortable under her scrutiny. Which was ironic because with Vincent and people, it was usually the other way around._

_Yuffie stared at him for a few more stretched moments and Vincent noticed something. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes were bloodshot. He had been too busy trying to remember the events leading up to his bed rest to see this about her, but now that he saw it, he was even more nonplussed._

_Yuffie shook her head at him and reached a hand up to wipe her damp face, sucking in a breath and blowing it out in a sigh. "Never mind, Vincent. Just…don't worry about it." She turned away from him, closing the door gently. The abrupt noise startled Vincent's ears anyway._

_That was the first time anyone had ever cried for him._

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent cleared his head of the memories he was dwelling on and looked to where the oddly long river was leading. The hooded captain of the tiny craft was pushing them to another bank of land at a bend in the river. The bank of land didn't extend very far because it ended in wall again. Embedded in the wall was an archway that led into darkness.

The gondolier pulled them to a halt next to this bank, and turned slowly to stare at Vincent again. It was a little unnerving to be stared at so intently, yet to see no face or eyes. With one last look at his temporary company, Vincent placed his booted feet on solid ground once more, and approached the stone archway.

He could see nothing in through the doorway, except for a thick, consuming darkness. It was like soup, coating everything—even though there was nothing to see—in sight. Vincent knew that there was nowhere to go if he did not enter here. He took a deep breath, and plunged himself into icy blackness.

It seemed that this was becoming a trend in his current lifestyle.


	3. Chapter 3

Vincent could feel the blackness enfolding him like a death shroud, which was ironic to say the least of the situation. He started to walk forward, encountering nothing but smooth ground, and seeing nothing but darkness. This was no ordinary night, for his demonic vision could usually pick out more than one thing where normal human eyes could not.

He kept walking, seeming to get nowhere, but having some sort of twisted knowledge that he would get where he needed to be soon enough.

- - - - - - - - - -

"_Yuffie!" He heard the cry rip from his throat before he could stop it._

_Cloud was the first one to reach her, being the closest, catching her before she could hit the ground. The others disposed of the rest of the foes around them quickly, as there were not many left. Vincent moved to the ex-SOLDIER's side, an overwhelming feeling—was that…concern?—taking root in his gut and blooming._

_Sweat was running down Cloud's forehead, dampening the ridiculous spikes in his hair and making them droop in a way that would have appeared comical, if not for the situation. He was lowering Yuffie gently onto the blood-soaked grass, being careful not to jostle her. A cautiously executed swipe of a blade had sliced her deeply, straight across the chest, from her left shoulder to her right hip. _

_The ninja's eyes were clenched shut and her eyebrows were drawn together in dark knots. One hand was fisted in the shirt over her chest, drenched in the scarlet stains of her own blood. She coughed, some of the substance bubbling from her lips, alerting them all of the danger of not only the blood loss, but possible internal damage as well. Vincent was already pulling out his Restore materia. _

_"Oh, shit," said Cid, jogging up to where Yuffie lay. His nicotine-stained teeth were gritted in empathy of her pain. _

_Vincent readied the twinkling green materia and cast a third-level cure four times, watching her wound knit together a bit more every time. On the fourth round, it wouldn't go any farther. There were certain wounds even a mastered Restore materia could not fully heal. Yuffie's brow had smoothed a bit, and she opened her eyes, looking up at Vincent. He could tell her brain was pain-fogged as she croaked "Thanks, Vinnie" and fell into unconsciousness._

_He looked up at AVALANCHE, all of whom had gathered around Yuffie lying on the grass. _

_"Vincent, if you can handle her carefully, I think you should take Yuffie back to the city as fast as you can get her there. You're the quickest of us." Cloud looked at him with sharp blue eyes._

_Vincent nodded and kneeled to pick her up cautiously under the knees and shoulders, taking care not to grip her with the razor sharp digits of his left hand. He set off in a mad dash, the long strides of his legs making the ride smoother than it would be for anyone else going as fast as he was—a normal human would never be able to go at the pace Vincent Valentine could. _

_Yuffie's blood was seeping into his clothes, leaking slowly from the congealing wound. He couldn't bring himself to care. _

- - - - - - - - - -

_The Wutainese doctor stepped out from the operating room and looked at them all with calm eyes. _

_"Your friend is going to live," he informed them all. "The blood transfusion was a success, fortunately, and her condition is currently stabilized. She is recovering normally." He gave them a relieved smile and they all seemed to let out a breath they hadn't known they were holding. _

_A nurse walked hurriedly into the room then, breaking the air around them. She glanced at the doctor urgently, motioning for him to follow her. "Doctor, we've found something odd in the blood screenings." The doctor nodded and followed her out, his brow furrowed._

_They had all known by the sound of the woman's voice that "something odd" was not very good. They weren't wrong._

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent took another step into what he assumed was more syrupy darkness and suddenly found himself in light. He was in a clean white room, with pleasant paintings on the walls, sitting at a long oak, finished table, with plenty of chairs. They were all filled. This place was ringing a bell. A very _loud_ bell.

Someone was speaking, so Vincent directed his attention at the man standing at the head of the table, who was reading from papers that he was pulling out of a briefcase and taking sips from a glass of chilled water at his side. He had angular black eyes and striking gold hair that was slicked back into tiny wings that ended at the back of his head. He was relatively moderate in stature, with a slim, trim figure. He wore an elaborate blue business suit with an expensive gold watch chain hanging from his pocket. His chin was rather pointed. One glance at the man's face told Vincent who he was.

This was the first man that Vincent had ever killed.

Vincent's eyes widened as he realized that he had his human left arm, there were no dormant demons in his mind that he could feel, and his hair was trimmed to a short, tousled cut that was suitable to a successful young businessman. He realized at this point that his eyes were probably a clear, steely blue—the color they had been before Hojo had experimented on him. He kept a calm face, glancing around at his surroundings.

This was definitely the place where he had first killed a man as a young Turk. He had been exactly twenty years old, having trained with the Turks for three years before being set on his first mission—this particular one, which for some reason, he was experiencing all over again. He closed his eyes very briefly, so as not to disturb anyone, when he realized all this would entail. He would have to kill ten men in one go. This had been the start of his career as a legend in the world of assassins and bodyguards and underground relations.

He remembered that the young man with the blonde hair and the black eyes had been a major competitor of Shinra Inc. He had gotten his hands on some of Shinra's more confidential documents regarding the experiments with mako and had been planning to take action—mainly in the form of starting his own experiments. This would have gotten Shinra's bad dealings discovered and lowered their advantageous profit in the market. That would simply not do, and when things simply would not do, they sent in Vincent. Or, at least, after this endeavor, that was the new rule in the company. Send Vincent.

This was the mission that would prove him worthy.

Vincent decided that since he was to replay this charade, he would do it _his_ way, not anyone else's. There was a key word, his cue, where he was to stand, begin to present false information, then basically stop and take out everyone in the room. That was how it had happened last time. This time around, however, he was going to simply wait it out and watch the consequences unfold. He was not going to kill anyone.

"…I have recently found myself in possession of the papers from our greatest competitor, Shinra Inc..."

That was his signal sentence, but Vincent remained obstinately seated, and had intended to keep doing so, when he found that his hands were moving to brace his body as he lifted himself out of the large, leather office chair. He couldn't stop himself and his limbs kept moving of their own accord. He tried to choke, to blink, to do_ something_ with his body, but to no avail. He could do nothing but watch himself, as he stood and looked purposefully at the young businessman and began to pull out something that was taped under the table, strategically placed there before the meeting, as he spoke.

"Yes, Mr. Vicelli. Did you have something to say?" the young man asked, addressing the disguised assassin.

Vincent nodded, never taking his eyes off his target. "I wanted to say that you have been given several warnings, Mr. Saires, but you have decided to ignore all of them. I have been sent here as the final solution to something that Shinra Inc. regards as a threat." His voice was cold, even.

The blonde's eyes widened as Vincent whipped out the silenced handgun under the table and emptied three rounds into him. The stunned look on his face remained as he seemed to fall in slow motion, his mouth open in a silent "o" and his hair ruffling just a bit as he fell backward, onto the floor. Vincent emptied the rest of the bullets on the surrounding men and quickly ripped out extra magazines from the lining of his briefcase and reloaded. This disposed of the rest of the men in the room and took care of any and all witnesses that could possibly identify him as associated with Shinra Inc.

Calmly, deftly, he disassembled his handgun and placed it in the briefcase, taking all incriminating evidence away with him as he exited the building and waved off to the security guard going out the door.

- - - - - - - - - -

The image faded and Vincent found himself in darkness once again, his mind overtaken by the horrors of his first kills. He remembered that he had gone back to his "home"—a measly apartment in inner-city Midgar—after reporting to headquarters to tell them of a completed job. There, he had finally broken down from his carefully constructed shields and he had curled into a fetal position in the middle of his bedroom floor, staring at nothing. He had remained that way until he had fallen asleep some fourteen hours later, awaking to the call of his cellular phone. It had been his boss with another assignment for him.

It was the beginning of his life as an emotionless shell, a being with no feelings over who or what it killed. He had no thought for himself, no conscience for any of it.

Vincent, lost in that black void, found himself gagging, reliving the emotions that he had not let himself feel in that moment. Those men had done nothing but cheat in the business world, playing fair by their own rules, hurting nothing. Even then, some of them had just been there for the meeting itself, waiting to find the surprises their boss had for them. He could still smell their blood and hear the sounds they had made as they died.

He felt acrid bile rise up in his throat and he emptied the contents of his stomach—not that there was much in the first place. He felt grateful the sick disappeared afterward, turning to nothing in the void. His black clothes were drenched, and his hair stuck to his furrowed forehead with sweat.

He blinked a few times, trying to clear his mind, ready to start moving away again, when suddenly he was in another scenario. This one was also eerily familiar.

He was walking into a house in Sector 4 of Midgar, a gun tucked under his jacket, a reassuring bulge at his side. He was twenty-one, his hair still cut evenly, still dark and tousled, his face just as pale, his chin still defiant.

But his eyes, those were what stuck out the most. His eyes and his demeanor.

Twenty-one-year-old Vincent Valentine had the air and eyes of someone who knew what blood was. The steely blue that they once were now reminded some people of a darkening sky, toward twilight, symbolic of their coming death. For, when one met Vincent outside of Shinra, there was almost always to be death. He had a cold persona, an arrogant air, and a deeply penetrating gaze that struck people to their very core.

Vincent Valentine had the eyes and air of a skilled killer.

There was a certain tension about him that implied the image of a panther ready to pounce at any given moment, someone to whom there was no end of stalking prey. In fact, it implied the image of a man to whom _everyone_ and _everything_ were prey.

He casually kicked open the front door of the quaint little home. He had been given no details as to _why_ he had to do this mission, just that he must. He had been given the location, his target, and been told that no one should be able to identify him. That would be easy, as it was night time and most of the people in the houses were asleep, and if they weren't, they would not be able to identify him, provided he stay out of the street lights.

He walked in and shut the door behind him, striding in from the front hall and into a sitting room. The television was on, casting a glow on the occupant of the living room, who just so happened to be his target. It was a man in about his early thirties, slightly balding, short and skinny. He heard Vincent stride into the room on creaking floorboards, and turned around in the middle of a sentence.

"Maggie, I was wondering if you happened to get that letter—" He broke off abruptly with a choking noise when he found himself looking cross-eyed down the barrel of a silenced pistol.

His eyes widened in the fraction of a second before Vincent's finger pulled the trigger. The only thought that ran through his mind as the man slumped backward and landed on the carpet was _pity about the upholstery_. He was turning to go when a small noise stopped him.

He found that a smallish woman was standing in the only other doorway in that room, illuminated by the light from the connecting threshold. She had chestnut curls that twined around her face and small crows' feet decorated her now wide mahogany eyes. Her gaze on him had sealed her fate. She was a witness and witnesses had to go.

He raised the gun, pulled the trigger once more, and the weight of her stare was gone. Vincent turned to go again, and he made it as far as the stairs before he was interrupted once more. This time it was a voice that caught him.

"Mommy?"

He looked up to the top of the staircase and found himself staring into the bright blue eyes of a curly-haired little girl. She had to be no more than four or five, and she stared at him, her mouth quivering. He stared back at her.

"Bad dream…" she whimpered. "Who are you? I want my mommy."

Another witness.

She dragged forward, down a step, pulling along behind her the body of a large, stuffed rabbit. Her footy-pajamas scraped against the stark carpet on the stairs, rustling slightly as she moved downward, her eyes glued to Vincent the whole time.

Vincent watched her descend two steps, then three, and he raised his gun, his trigger finger moving forward to that spot. She took one more step and…

This time, when Vincent turned to go, he was not interrupted again.

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent was floating again, clutching his head in pain. His clawed fist was clenched as tightly as it would go, making horrible screeching noises as the metal ground against the metal. He shook, his whole body quaking as sweat poured off of him, stinging his eyes and catching in his lips. Goosebumps rose on his arms and legs and he found himself dry heaving since there was nothing left in his stomach to rid.

Killing that little girl had been one of the memories that had plagued him most often in his later days, dwelling in the coffin, in guilt over the things that he had done, replaying every moment in his head. Her eyes haunted him the most, next to Lucrecia's, a recurring, stabbing wound. He remembered every minute detail of her, from the cornflower blue of her eyes, to her delicately tousled, curly brown hair. At seeing her so vividly after all those years, he gritted his teeth so hard, he could hear them squeaking.

Vincent shivered, but did not have time to do anything more as he found himself in another memory. This time, he was wearing thin aqua-colored pants over his normal ones, a shirt of the same color and material, and a mask over half of his face.

He was wearing the uniform of a surgeon.

Vincent remembered this particular endeavor in a jumbled flash. His target this time around was to off an old, sickly man. This particular fellow had been in the hospital for six months, readying himself for inevitable death at the hands of health complications. Vincent only knew that he was going to change his will very soon, and in that will, there was a lot of land and money that was being contributed to Shinra. If that will were to change, it would be a great loss for the company. But, if the man died before the will changed, then all would be well and good for Shinra Inc. That was where Vincent's job started and ended.

He entered the room inconspicuously, due to the pilfered uniform. It seemed pretty routine that a surgeon enter a patient's room in a hospital. He stepped in, his nostrils flaring slightly at the sent of bedpans, sterilization, and sickness. Vincent had a terribly delicate sense of smell. He traveled to the only bed in the room, listening to the steady chirp of the heart monitor.

The target was asleep, his eyes closed, wrinkles edging them and spidering along his face into deeper, doughier wrinkles. The smell of disinfected sick permeated the man, radiating from his person. He was fragile and small, shrunken. He definitely looked the part of a feeble man on the brink of death.

Even though Vincent made no sound upon approaching the bedside, the man opened his eyes anyway. His eyes locked with Vincent's and something flickered in the hazy gaze of the patient. He knew that Vincent was not any type of hospital personnel and he immediately reached for the button to buzz the nurse. Vincent knocked his hand away and stepped between the stretching limb and the button, effectively blocking any attempts at alerting someone of the assassin's presence.

The old man opened his thin, shriveled mouth and spoke, his voice cracked with disuse. "I expect you're here to kill me then?"

Vincent raised one eyebrow and gave a slight nod, pulling out his pistol. This would be messy, but if it was not an instant death, the hospital employees would be alerted of the erratic heart blips on the monitor, and come to investigate, possibly revealing Vincent and giving the man a chance at survival.

"Well, you're too late. I already changed the will," he said as smugly as his raspy voice would allow. "Right under Shinra's nose too. Do whatever you like, it doesn't matter. As long as it's been set right in the end."

Vincent raised his silenced handgun. Even if what the man said were true, he was still assigned to kill him. So, with one last look into the man's eyes, he did. The last thing that flickered there, Vincent saw, was a sort of resignation…a sort of peace. It would probably have disturbed him, had Vincent not been an emotionless machine. Later on, it _would_ disturb him how someone could looks so peaceful in death. It was a thought he questioned many a time.

Being that he had completed his task and killed the man assigned, there were no repercussions on Vincent's part for the fact that the will had already been changed. Apparently, the informant for Shinra's dealings, that had been supposedly keeping an eye on what the man had been conducting and who he had been contacting, had been the one who got the wrong end of the stick after the mess had been sorted out. It was commonly known that when Shinra suffered, you did too.

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent was catapulted back into empty space once more, shuddering and rocking, clutching his knees to his chest. There was not one place on him that wasn't slick with sweat anymore. He was quivering, having emptied his stomach beyond completion. His mouth tasted disgusting and his throat was desert-dry, rasping as he tried to swallow again and again in horror and revulsion at himself.

He barely had time to register this before being thrown once more into another dreamscape and another and another, until it all became a senseless blur, a whirl of faces and times and places that he had been to, that he remembered, that were burned into his mind like brands to a piece of livestock. They were scarred into his retinas and into his soul in such a way as to never leave him, but having to relive these pains were to tear open every little wound, to rip away that scar tissue, leaving it bleeding and raw and dripping with shame, and then to rub, no, _grind_ salt into them, stinging and burning hideously.

He was consumed by guilt, and somewhere in that timeless abyss that was the experience then, he realized he was reliving every person he had ever killed, every life that he had ever ended. He was reliving them and experiencing the emotions that he hadn't allowed himself to experience then, hadn't allowed himself to feel then, being nothing but a tool for killing, for pain. He had been merciless, a demon of death in a form of beauty, with eyes as cold and lacking feeling as tried-and-true steel.

He had ended the lives of so many, taking away something that he had never had the right to take. Killing had come by nature after the very first attempt and from then on it ran as smoothly as the blood he spilled, staining his hands, staining his body from head to toe and soaking into him, leaving deep, rust-colored stains on the very inner workings of his soul, marking him.

Those marks had pointed him out to the world. "Look at this man, he's a killer!" "Steer clear of him! He will surely end you if he catches your eye." "You cannot trust him, for he is death embodied and nothing is held sacred to him."

He was a monster, and as these experiences sped past him, becoming one endless, hazy world of guilt, rage, pain, anguish, and suffering, Vincent felt himself beginning to lose his mind. He was losing his grip on one of the only things he valued: his already fragile sanity.

He was nearing the edge when he was thrown into a different memory. In it, again he was killing, but this time, there was a waitress, serving him in a restaurant. The waitress was small and pale, with a slight body, gray eyes, and shoulder-length black hair. Those sharp eyes jolted him and his mind leaped back from the cliff's edge, regaining its footholds and taking strength once again in the knowledge that there was a reason to all of this, that this was all a test of who he was and what he could handle. He was here to save _her_ soul, and if he lost himself now, then he was denying her the chance.

So, with renewed consciousness, he braced himself through the agony, detaching his mind from the horror of himself, of his own reality, for just a little while, until this wave of grief could end.

Once the visions reached the age of twenty-seven, they stopped. Vincent hung in the abyss for a while, until he realized that there was a change: he hadn't been thrown into another memory for at least an hour. The last death he had had to relive was three days before Hojo had gotten his filthy hands on Vincent and destroyed him, mind, body and soul.

It was the last time he had killed someone so carelessly before his retribution had come in the form of a temptress, a madman, three demons, a lab table, and a scalpel. After that, he remembered nothing, except nightmares and after an eternity of blackness, his memories kicked back in with the curious face of a man with radical blonde hair and luminescent blue eyes, accompanied by a curvy young woman with a trailing braid and a tall, slim woman with arcing chestnut bangs.

Vincent lay there on the solidity of the ground, or the floor, or whatever the Hell it was that he was lying on—he was too exhausted to contemplate it. He closed his garnet eyes briefly, intending only to rest for a short moment before moving on, but soon found himself involuntarily drifting into the realm of sleep. This challenge had been more taxing on his body than he had initially realized. It was, he thought, most likely an overload of emotions that had been blocked out and deadened, backed up like a clogged drain, suddenly bursting forth and flooding his senses. It had overwhelmed his mind, filling him with more than he could handle until it spilled forth from his eyes in waves of agony.

Now that his overheated body was cooling down, Vincent was starting to feel clammy from the amount of perspiration drenching him, but he could not bring himself to care very much as his limbs loosened and he gave way to unconsciousness. His last thought was the idle wonderment as to whether or not one could become dehydrated in the underworld.

- - - - - - - - - -

_Crunch._

_Vincent was sitting on the edge of the hotel bed. He sighed very softly, inaudibly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes disdainfully. The disdain was directed a slight bit toward humanity in general, but the rest of it was mostly Yuffie Kisaragi. _

_Crunch. Crunch, crunch. _

_One would think that after a while, there would be a point that a person would either stop eating or start to puke his or her guts out, but _no, _not Yuffie. Yuffie never seemed to _stop_ eating. She also never seemed to get sick. It was tolerable on most days, but today, it was more irritating than usual, seeing as she was being particularly annoying about it._

_Crunch._

_Vincent was struggling to ignore her as she flicked her cloudy gray gaze over to him mischievously, checking for his reaction. _

_They were sitting in a hotel room in Junon, waiting on Cloud and the others to get back from their shopping trip. Tifa, the only other person who had stayed behind with Vincent and Yuffie, had already given up trying to ignore the tension in the room and had decided to go hide herself away in the bathroom. Vincent had briefly considered going into Cloud's room for some peace and quiet, but realized that A) he did not have the key to anyone else's room at the moment, and B) some perverse part of him did not want to admit defeat to the obnoxious little ninja._

_Crunch. _

_It seemed that, lately, no one wanted to be around when Vincent and Yuffie were in the same room. All they seemed to do was argue, or—mostly from Yuffie to Vincent—annoy one another. It seemed that today, the pair of them had chosen the latter, so Vincent sat and resisted the urge to grind his teeth as Yuffie bit noisily into another crispy potato chip, leaving her mouth wide open to show her food and to amplify the crunching noise._

_"Hey, Vinnie," crunch, crunch, "ya sure ya don't want any of these," crunch, crunch, crunch, "_chiiiips_?"_

_Vincent flicked a bone-melting glare in her direction, and said through clenched teeth, as calmly as possible, "No, Yuffie."_

_She shot him a coy look from underneath her eyelashes, munching the chips still. "I don't know, Vince. You're lookin' kinda skinny these days. I mean, you were already sort of feminine looking, but add to that this sudden anorexia of yours, then you have a lot of people questioning your sexual identity. Are you sure _you're_ not questioning your sexual identity, Vin Vin?"_

_He gritted his teeth harder, briefly imagining that he felt one of his canines shatter as he did so. Meanwhile, Yuffie flounced over to him, swinging her hips flirtatiously and flopping down into his lap, grinding her pelvis into the bones of his thighs suggestively. Horrified, Vincent almost shoved her off, but restrained himself, opting instead to politely try to disengage her from his person. There was to be none of that for Yuffie, however, as she only twisted around in his grip and knocked him bodily backward with her full weight, onto the length of the bed. _

_Yuffie tangled her smooth brown legs into his, rubbing her sock feet along his cloth-covered legs—which wasn't very erotic to say the least. However, the fact that she was pushing her small breasts into his chest and grinding her rather sharp hip bones into Vincent's, _was _rather erotic. Vincent swallowed uncomfortably as she reached into the bag of chips laying on the side of the bed where she had dropped it, and slowly, slowly brought it to her mouth, chewing carefully, then, after it seemed an eternity of chewing, swallowed the potato chip, licking her lips. Her face was inches from his and she was staring into his eyes with predatory mischief in her own. She reached up and with one finger, flicked his nose._

_"Nevermind, Vinnie," she said, her breath coming in hot clouds on his face. "I won't be questioning your sexual identity anymore."_

_With one last provocative grind of her hips, she hopped off of Vincent and flounced out of the room, apparently satisfied that she had left him in such a…state. Tifa walked in merely moments after Vincent had sat up and arranged his cloak appropriately. He thanked all the gods he knew for loose fabric at that moment. She lifted one eyebrow, obviously sensing his disconcertion, if not seeing it on his emotionless face. _

_"Did I miss something?"_

_Vincent lifted one eyebrow at her, and she shrugged, holding her hands up in defeat. "All right, all right. Dropping it. Not like I need to know anyway."_

_Tifa left and Vincent sat there on the edge of the bed, visibly disgusted at himself. To think he had become aroused at the idiotic machinations of a sixteen-year-old. Honestly, where was his control? Yuffie was a misbehaving child and at that moment, Vincent wanted nothing more in the world than to slap the back of her hands and sit her in the corner. He simmered with anger. _

_Though, whether that anger was at Yuffie or himself, he didn't care to explore, as he went to take a hot shower, wishing to wash away her scent and the feel of her body crushed against his. He felt filthy._


	4. Chapter 4

Vincent stood, shaking, even after the rest he had taken for who-knew-how-long. He tried to walk, staggered, and fell to one knee, his head spinning dangerously. He wanted desperately to lie back down and sleep for ages more, but he decided against it, realizing that he had no way of knowing if staying in this place for a prolonged period of time would have any type of ill effects on him or if there was a time constraint on how long he had to retrieve Yuffie's soul.

He rose, setting his teeth and running a hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes, feeling his hand become slick with the sweat that was taking time to dry there. He hoped upon hope that it was not possible to become dehydrated in Hell, or whatever this place was, because he had definitely shed entirely too much water for it to be safe.

He trudged forward again, feeling as though his feet were mired in quicksand and that he was trying to swim through it. It was painstaking and grueling, but soon his body settled into a comfortable numbness, disregarding the exhaustion, disregarding the pain, running on pure adrenaline and determination.

Again, it seemed as though the blackness was endless, and again, Vincent knew that he would find what he was looking for if he just kept moving. Soon enough, after an eternity of nothing, out of nowhere, a door appeared in front of him. He stopped abruptly to snap his head back and take a look, as it had materialized perilously close to his face. A bitter trail of thought ran through his head. '_I wonder if annoyance is a challenge…'_

Seeing nothing else to do, Vincent shrugged subconsciously and pushed the door open, one hand on the Cerberus at his side. He entered into a room that was dazzlingly bright after having traversed so much dark. His pupils contracted violently at the sudden shock and he blinked furiously, attempting to adjust his delicate demon eyesight.

When he could see again, he studied the room, stepping in farther. The door closed of its own volition behind him and disappeared, leaving no exit. It made him uneasy. Basic instinct for Turks and former Turks was to always make sure to have an exit. It was too late at that point to do anything about it, though, as Vincent assumed that this was to be the dubious setting of his second challenge.

Upon further inspection of the room, Vincent had more than a faint inkling of what this next hurdle was to be.

The room itself was plain, white walls, white ceiling, white floor, almost no transition between except for the fact that the direction of the plane itself changed. The space was cluttered with shiny, sharp, lethal instruments of torture. There were things of every kind. You name it: electric chairs, Chinese water torture, the rack. Those were only a few.

Vincent had a _very_ good idea what his next challenge was.

Sighing, he walked forward two more steps and several things happened at once. In his peripheral vision he saw something materialize and he whirled, hand on his gun, to face it. This time it was no object, no door, nothing of that sort. This time it was the corporeal form of a human. A man; a familiar man, at that.

In fact, his narrow black eyes, his sleek golden hair with the tiny feathery protrusions and his sharp, pointed chin were chillingly familiar. Had he not already seen this man once today? Had he not already been faced with this once? Apparently not, according to whatever power ruled the underworld and its ilk.

Vincent, knowing that whatever was to come, was going to have to be face without the use of force, removed his hand from his gun and let his arm rest by his side, expression set, calm and cold. He looked the shimmering form in its spectral eyes, waiting for a move to be made.

"Vincent Valentine," the man hissed. Mr. Saires. His name was Saires. "I've been waiting a long, long time for this. I never knew I'd actually get my wish."

His voice was not the smooth thing it had been in life. It was a rasping, desperate thing, the kind of voice a person has when that person has been crawling in dark places too long. His eyes were not the bright, intelligent things they had been at one time. They were the eyes of a crazed animal, something that had waited long for one thing and one thing only—and had finally gotten it.

His hand twitched again and he _longed_ to go for his gun, instinct and adrenaline egging him on to grab it and level it at Saires, to shove the gleaming barrel of Cerberus in his face and end it right then and there. Logic won over again and he knew that the insubstantial form of this man would not yield to something as physical as bullets. Evil spirits were not banished with human weapons, he reasoned.

Unfortunately, Saires saw his hand jerk ever-so-slightly toward his pistol. In life, Vincent clearly remembered that his gaze had been sharp, catching most things. Now, even though they were empty and soulless, hard as obsidian, they still flickered toward the area of Vincent's hand. A smirk appeared on Saires' lips. He quirked a golden eyebrow at Vincent.

"Ah, Mr. Valentine, I don't believe you wish to do that. The fun's only beginning and it would be quite futile to try to use something such as one of your material guns on something such as me. That worked once, I admit, but it shall not work again, I assure you."

With that, his eyes glittered strangely and Vincent felt a great blow to his temple, with such force that he threw up his hands and fell to his knees, clutching the spot and clenching his eyes shut. A ringing had overtaken his hearing, shutting out most every other sound and muffling the slightly gleeful tone of Saires.

"Did that hurt, Vincent? Did that hurt as much as I think it hurt you? That's not all I want to do with you, though. I want to see you _bleed_, Mr. Valentine. I want to hear you _scream_."

Vincent opened his eyes just in time to receive another invisible blow straight to the stomach, crushing his bowels and his bladder and completely knocking the wind out of him. He coughed slightly, trying to regain his breath, but another strike hit him right in the groin, causing his nerve endings to explode with pain. He felt what resembled something like claws rending the cloth and flesh down his back and he threw his head back, scrabbling at the area with his flesh arm, feeling warm, wet rivulets of blood stream between his fingers. The tattered shreds of his cloak and his tunic were already becoming sodden with it.

More angry claws raked down his body and soon he was wearing nothing but frayed remnants of his clothing and his belts, lying on his side and curled into the fetal position. It didn't help. He felt his body being wrenched into a position of balancing on his hands and knees, bowed submissively. He heard a few cracks, and then pain lanced through fine lines on his back, searing at his muscles. He arched his spine in pain, hissing through his teeth. He glanced backward over his shoulder to see that Saires was wielding a nine-tailed whip. The name for it tickled at his mind for a moment, not quite coming to him, but a few more lashes of the device served to refresh his memory.

That particular instrument was aptly named The Cat o' Nine Tails.

Its braided leather tentacles arced through the air and bounced off his back with the severity of a tiger digging its claws into his skin and ripping all the way down. It hurt. Vincent, in a half-crazed state of pain, almost let out a delirious chuckle at his next thought: _'This hurts like Hell!' _He contorted himself different ways each time he was hit with every single one of those tails, gritting his teeth in a manner that he was sure would make his jawbone disintegrate completely.

But still, Vincent had not screamed.

After a time, the whipping stopped completely and silence reigned for a few drawn out moments. Vincent heard Saires let out a few "tut, tut"s. Then he snapped his fingers and suddenly Vincent was fine. He was no longer bleeding, his hair was clean and springy and not matted with bodily fluids, his clothes were no longer shredded and he was the same as before the torture had begun, with nothing to show for the immense pain he had just experienced. He looked up from where he was kneeling on the floor to see Saires smiling at him grimly.

"I told you, Vincent. I want to hear you scream. Unfortunately, _my_ turn with you is up. So, I'll just leave that task to the others." He showed his teeth to Vincent in a way that could not be considered a smile, but something much, much more predatory and unclean.

Then, he disappeared, leaving another figure to materialize in his place, this one also shimmering and insubstantial. This figure was a woman with long, wavy, raven-dark hair that fell to her waist. She had a thin figure, with curves that weren't very pronounced, but were proportionate to her body. A smattering of freckles crossed her pale face, underneath ice-blue eyes that stared down a thin nose at him. She would altogether have seemed very attractive, had it not been for that same, animalistic aura around her—the same aura that had emanated from Saires.

Vincent didn't remember this woman's name. Only that he had killed her. He stared up at her from his place in the dirt, on his knees, feeling as though he looked like a cowed dog. He probably did. Every instinct of pride in him screamed out to stand up, to level that gun at her, to end it all. He wanted to leave with his dignity, but he was getting the odd feeling that that wasn't going to happen.

The woman smiled at him thinly, her lips stretching across her gleaming white teeth tersely. "You don't remember my name, do you, Vincent Valentine?" He remained silent, which was answer enough for her.

"Of course you don't." Her face twisted hideously and Vincent felt the sharp sting of a hard slap across his cheek. It whipped his head to the side from the sheer force of it. "Of _course_ you don't remember my name. My life wasn't anything but another kill for you, another figure on your list," she hissed through her teeth. "I'm here to show you today that I'm not someone that you can kill and then forget, just like that."

He felt another sharp sting of a slap, and another, and another until his head was whipping back and forth in some sick parody of ping pong. He set his teeth once more, grinding them together, so as not to bite his tongue.

"My life had worth. I had a fiancé, a career, parents, a sister. I had things to do before I died, goals to accomplish. I was someone. I mattered. I _mattered! My life mattered, damn it!_" Her voice was an inhuman shriek.

Vincent clenched his eyes shut as he got hit solidly in the jaw, sending his head ricocheting up and making him see stars. He could feel his hair starting to be ripped out, chunk by chunk, tearing off skin as it came away, leaving his scalp a bloody, lumpy mess. Blood ran into his eyes and turned his vision red and he could taste the iron in it as it ran over his lips. He got kicked in the gut again, making him cough. He got kicked in the chest again and again until he heard the crunch of bones and a sharp pain. She had just cracked a few ribs.

It didn't seem to matter that he was curled in a defensive position, emulating a child in the womb because suddenly he felt a disgusting, gut-wrenching pain in one of the worst possible places: between his legs.

He opened his mouth in a silent scream of agony. He knew, deep in the part of his brain that he didn't wish to acknowledge, buried in that file marked "denial," he knew what had just happened. He didn't want to face it, but the pain and the blood seeping through his fingers was overwhelming, and he started to gag at the thought of it, choking and wheezing.

He had just been castrated.

This woman, this woman he had killed, had just taken away the defining part of him that gave him a gender, which separated him in the sexes. She had taken away a precious function for him, taken away his masculinity and stolen away a piece of his pride. Pride was one of the only things that Vincent had left in his sham of a soul.

He closed his mouth, strangling his voice in the wet canal of his throat. He refused to let himself break. He refused to let them hear his pain. They didn't deserve to see that side of him. They didn't deserve to see him anything less than he was, be it filth or be it man. He would not let them hear a scream. Somehow he knew that giving them what they wanted, letting them hear his anguish, would be the failure of this challenge. He needed to bite the bullet to pass.

Warm blood seeped through his pant legs and dripped down his boots and into his socks. Everything else that was happening to him ceased to be. He could hear himself grunt faintly in the background of his mind as he pulled back into that blank space, that place reserved in everyone's brain for when they shut themselves down and block out everything else. He could no longer feel the blinding pain as various blows to various parts of his body were administered.

This went on for a time, until that woman disappeared. "My _name_," she hissed sibilantly, "was Julia."

This signaled that a new session of torture was to begin, so automatically, Vincent was healed, everything returning to normal as it once was, not a single strand of hair out of place on top of the gunslinger's head. He didn't even feel sore. Which was, he assumed, going to make the next bit of pain even more acute. Another soul appeared, he was tortured, he was healed. Another soul appeared, he was tortured, he was healed. It was a cycle that went on through countless tormenters and countless amounts of time.

It happened this way, until a certain woman came to him. She had spiky, flaming orange hair and was covered in freckles. She was diminutive in stature, lightweight and slim. An inkling of her name came to him and then a short memory flashed through his mind. Her name was Elliot and she had put up a pretty good fight. He thought he remembered her being some kind of trained assassin or bodyguard that he had been instructed to kill. She had offed about six different Turks before Vincent was given his instructions on her.

Elliot, unlike the last two bloodthirsty souls, had less of that sizzling aura. It was there, but it was more contained, more controlled. Elliot also, unlike the other spirits, decided to approach him. She prowled forward slowly, coming to a stop with only her legs in Vincent's line of sight. A small, pale hand came down and two slender fingers placed themselves under his chin, jerking his face up to see hers. She was bent, her features coming only less than a foot away. He realized that the air around her was excessively cold. He looked into her slanted violet eyes, seeing nothing there but ice.

"Vincent," she breathed into his face. "You remember me, of course. There's no way you could forget that."

She trailed her translucent fingertips down the side of his face, sliding them over the catches on his cloak and stopping them in the middle of his chest. Every point on him that she touched left a radiating, ice cold path, even through the fabric of his shirt. She started to walk circles around him, looking down her small, pert nose at him, appraising him like a stalking predator.

Elliot chuckled. "Hmmm…Vincent, I think this normal torture is a little bit _boring_," she drawled. "Don't you agree?" He just stared at her, not making a move to speak at all. "I'll take that as a yes. So, in that case, we're going to go with something a little more interesting. This ought to at least liven things up a bit."

Vincent suddenly found himself strapped down at the wrists, the waist and chest, and the ankles. His head was clamped between to wooden paddles, preventing any type of movement, unless he wanted to breathe, blink, or wiggle his fingers and toes. Above him, about four feet above his face, was what looked to be some sort of strangely crafted faucet. Elliot appeared next to him leaning into his line of sight and blocking his view of the odd plumbing. She smirked.

"I'm sure that you've heard of water torture, Vincent. Am I right?"

Vincent gritted his teeth. This was going to be, like Elliot had said, interesting.

She disappeared momentarily, presumably somewhere out of sight, and that was when Vincent looked up to see a single drop of water dangling from the lip of that faucet, hanging there precariously, swelling and getting heavier, increasing in size until—

_Drip._

The lukewarm water splashed right onto the bridge of his nose, directly between his eyes. He had a maddening compulsion to reach his hand up and wipe it off, but couldn't move his arms for the straps. His flesh hand twitched reflexively. He focused his ruby eyes on the faucet again, seeing another fat drop beginning to form.

_Drip._

The water slid down the bridge of his nose a little way and then slipped into the cleft where his nostril met his cheek, eventually trailing down into the corner of his mouth. It tickled the fine stubble on his upper lip.

_Drip._

This one landed and inched its way down into the corner of his left eye. It stung. He blinked rapidly.

_Drip._

Time seemed to be slowing to a crawl and sounds were amplified. Each tiny _plip_ from where the beads of moisture came into contact with his skin sounded one hundred times louder than normal, resonating in his eardrums and through his skull.

Vincent slowly drifted into the less hazardous—but not by much—confines of his own thoughts.

- - - - - - - - - -

"_VINCENT VALENTINE!"_

_A feminine shriek echoed through his mind, ricocheting off the walls of his thoughts. It kept bouncing until it felt like the sound hit a fragile spot in his psyche and split his skull wide open, leaving his memories to pour out onto the floor and drench everything around him, while that gut-wrenching screech wrapped itself around his body and suffocated him._

_Something in him stirred; something base, something raw, something Vincent. His eyes fluttered open in the total dark and he saw cushioning above him and could feel the padding on either side of him and underneath his body. The last thing he remembered was a dream about Lucrecia, deep brown eyes taunting him in a fading wisp of thought. _

_He was plunged on full-alert as he heard noises from outside his wooden box. He placed a readied hand on the Quicksilver at his side. Soon enough, a tremendous scraping filled his ears as the lid to his coffin was savagely thrown off and more light than he had seen in six months rendered him temporarily blind. Immediately, he sat up and pointed his pistol in the direction of the offender, steel in his stance._

_"Vincent Whatever-the-fuck-your-middle-name-is Valentine, you get that gun out of my face before I shove the sharp end of a shuriken straight up your ass," a familiar voice snarled._

_ His eyes adjusted after a few more seconds and he saw that he was looking into a slightly older version of Yuffie Kisaragi. A slightly older, more-than-slightly irritated version of Yuffie Kisaragi, with two more-than-slightly irritated hands on her more-than-slightly irritated hips, staring at him with more-than-slightly irritated gray eyes. Plastered on her small tan face was a more-than-slightly irritated scowl._

_All this more-than-slight irritation was directed at him._

_He frowned at her and lowered his gun, displeased that she had disturbed his rest. "What do you want, Yuffie?"_

_Her jaw visibly tightened. "Don't you give me that shit, Vincent. You should _know_ why I'm here. If you don't, so help me…" She left the threat hanging as she brandished a fist._

_He lifted an incredulous eyebrow, becoming annoyed at her presence. What right did she have to wrench him away from his solitude and his thoughts? What right did she have to come bursting through the door to what was technically _his_ domain? What right did she have to make demands and threats of him this way, in _his_ home?_

_"Get out." His voice was cold as he rearranged his cloak and went to lie back down in his coffin. Before he could get all the way into a lying position however, Yuffie reached down and fisted a hand in the collar of his cape and yanked him upright, bringing his face only inches from hers. Her eyes were stormy and angry._

_"I take that to mean you don't remember then?" she bit out. He bared his sharp canines at her, clearly angry at her behavior._

_"Yuffie, remove your hand from—"_

_His next sentence was abruptly ended by the fist cutting across his mouth, making him bite his lip. Hard. He lurched forward and grabbed at the ninja, thoroughly ticked off and ready to serve that blow back to her, but grabbed empty air, for she was a fraction faster than him, as usual. Having missed her after attempting such a large move in the elevated coffin, he fell and sprawled in an ungraceful heap on the floor. Six months in a coffin does not a sharp Vincent make. _

_He heard her snicker spitefully and looked up, glaring at her through his fringe. He rose, dusting himself off and reigning in his temper._

_"Leave, Yuffie."_

_She smirked. "You don't want to know why I just punched you across the mouth and gave you a bloody lip? It's Wutainese for WAKE THE FUCK UP, VINCENT!"_

_"Leave."_

_"I'm not going to come all the way out here to punch you in the face, get bitched at and treated like shit without telling you the reason!" She was really pissed off now._

_He stared at her, waiting for an answer. She glared. _

_"I came here because you _promised._ You promised and you BROKE THAT PROMISE, VINCENT VALENTINE!" She was fully yelling now, saliva flying from her mouth as she gestured wildly at him._

_"I came here," she said, quieting, "because you missed the anniversary get-together we have to remember Aeris."_

_His eyes widened and he stared at her in shock, realizing that she was absolutely right. They had all promised to meet every year on that day, no matter what happened, in memory of Aeris and everything she stood for to them. It wasn't that he had forgotten. He had just gone back to the coffin and decided to sleep for a while. Then he had started thinking about Lucrecia and thinking about sins and he had…_

_He had forgotten. He had forgotten about something he had promised to do. He had forgotten about something important to him, important to AVALANCHE. He had gotten so caught up in himself that he had forgotten. He wondered how he could be so stupid at times._

_Seeing the realization dawning in his eyes, Yuffie nodded. "Yeah. Uh-huh. You forgot, Vincent. You forgot about the most important thing ever and for _what_? To sit around and dwell on your_self_ in this stupid coffin for who-knows-how long? I oughtta kick your ass from here to Bone Village and back again, you sorry son of a bitch!"_

_"Yuffie, I—"_

_"And here _we_ all are, waiting to start the ceremonies until you get there. None of us have even _heard_ from you in six fucking months and then you don't show! Do you understand how uncomfortable that is for us? No, of course you don't. You're the walking machine, Vincent Valentine. Vincent Valentine, the man with no emotions. I swear you're such a fucking idiot sometimes, Vincent."_

_She stormed out, hands fisted at her side, furious, leaving Vincent to contemplate her words. He didn't contemplate long, however. Kicking his feet into gear, he set off in a swift jog to catch up with her, since she had already stomped her way out of the Shinra mansion and was no doubt on her way to getting her chocobo out from whatever stable she had left it. _

_He caught her in the town square, mounting her squawking gold bird in the slowly rotating shadow of the windmill's blades. Raising his voice above the normal level, he called out to her. "Yuffie!"_

_She turned sharply, gazing at him with steady, heated eyes. He stared back, now only three yards from her and her bird. He opened his mouth to speak, choking on the words._

_"Yuffie, I…I'm…sor—"_

_"No, Vincent. If you're about to do what I think you're about to do, which is apologize, then I think I might have a heart attack. Personally, I don't feel like dying today. Aside from that, the thought is nice, but it's not _me_ that you should be apologizing to. It's everyone else. It's Aeris you should be apologizing to."_

_They gazed at each other once more for a long, uncomfortable, silent moment. Finally, the princess of Wutai turned around in her saddle, adjusting her legs and seat to get comfortable, and drew in the reins a bit on her chocobo. _

_"Yuffie."_

_She looked at him over one small tan shoulder. "Yah, Vinnie?" 'Vinnie' was good. 'Vinnie' meant she was no longer angry. 'Vinnie' meant they were on their way back to the usual fine tension._

_"Thank you."_

_She lifted one eyebrow and grinned cheekily, then whipped about and cracked the reins, riding out of the town and into the orange evening light. Vincent stared after her for a while, until he grew tired of it and turned back to the mansion, staring at its empty windows, its rusty-hinged shutters banging in the strong breeze that played around him. The wind came in muggy, humid gusts, swirling his cape and hair into a tangled frenzy._

_He turned away from the silent, monolithic mansion and toward the chocobo rental stables, listening to the jingle of coins in his pocket as he strolled toward the place at a brisk stride._

- - - - - - - - - -

_Drip._

It was maddening. He had the inexplicable urge to reach his hand up and wipe the water droplets away. They were landing right between his eyes, directly in the spot where his eyebrows ended to form a sort of blank expanse.

_Drip._

He struggled against his bonds, tugging his wrists, flesh and metal, against the straps. They were strong, and they cut into the skin of his normal human arm. He pulled as hard as he could, quivering with the effort.

_Drip._

He was breathing heavily now, his eyes rolling in their sockets, back and forth, left right, up down. His nostrils flared as he inhaled and exhaled harshly.

_Drip._

- - - - - - - - - -

_He heard gunshots and the scream of metal against metal. Following his nose—gunpowder—and his ears—_clang_—Vincent found himself looking down on a rather unwelcome scene through the glowing skeletons of the trees._

_Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo, the three manifestations of Sephiroth's being, had pitted themselves against a rather outnumbered Cloud. They were surrounded by children who watched with seemingly empty eyes. There was no way that Cloud could win this fight fairly, outnumbered as he was. Their presence of three, attacking all at once in a barrage—was that materia Vincent saw glowing on them?—seemed to surpass Cloud's overall ability. Vincent decided to step in for a quick rescue. It was about time he saw Cloud again. There were some…things…that needed catching up. _

_Shifting into his cloak form, he hop-skipped down a few tree branches and enveloped a startled Cloud, who had fallen to the ground and had been lying there, unmoving. Kadaj had landed a few feet away and was advancing, but backed away, blocking the rounds Vincent emptied at him through the swirling folds of his cape. He didn't stick around, not with an unconscious Cloud to handle. Those three were a force to be reckoned with. He didn't feel like reckoning._

_Darting across the treetops, he easily found a secluded area after he confirmed that they weren't being followed by the trio. Cloud would undoubtedly deal with them, but not at this point. Vincent lowered himself and his burden to the ground carefully, trying not to jostle. His form swept upwards, lengthening and becoming more solid, until he was Vincent Valentine once more._

_Striding over to the small body of water in the clearing, Vincent cupped some of the liquid in his hands. He leaned over Cloud and dumped it straight onto his face. Spluttering, Cloud came to, blinking the water out of his eyes. Not one of Vincent's most subtle approaches, but he needed Cloud awake. There was dire information to be traded._

_The blue-eyed ex-SOLDIER sat up, staring at Vincent with an unreadable look on his face. Vincent stared back stoically. Cloud broke the silence._

_"It's been a while, Vincent."_

_Vincent nodded minutely. "It has."_

_"I'm assuming _you_ saved me back there?" _

_"Yes. There is much to discuss."_

- - - - - - - - - -

_Drip._

He was going insane.

_Drip._

He was losing his mind.

_Drip._

There was no time anymore. There was just water and silence and the odd chuckle every once in a while from Elliot.

_Drip._

He would not scream.

_Drip._

He would not give them the satisfaction.

_Drip._

They would never get to see that side of him.

_Drip._

Never.

_Drip._

Never. Never. Never. Never.

_Drip._

Never.

_Drip._

NEVER.

_Drip._

_NEVER._

He was muttering now.

_Drip._

"Never, never, never."

_Drip._

"Never, never, never, never, _never, never, never_."

_Drip._

_Drip._

_Drip…_

He was breaking. His mind was departing, floating away, sprouting wings and leaving his head in a burst of freedom. The wings dissolved, leaving him swimming in a sea of his own insanity.

Then, he heard something. He heard a stifled gasp, but could see nothing, as he could not move his head. He flinched as another splash of water smacked him in the face. Several more seconds passed and suddenly his bonds loosened and the clamps holding his head in place fell away. He used his now more freely-moving gauntlet to slice away the straps that held that arm and then the rest of them.

Sitting up and stepping off the table, he wiped his face dry with his collar, quivering from the ordeal, and looked around to see why he had been freed. Elliot was gone, and in her place was someone that had haunted his dreams for many years. He was looking on the slightly chubby face and clear blue eyes of a very familiar four-year-old girl. His eyes widened, and he backed up a few steps, running into the table with his backside.

She grinned at him, the smile engulfing her round little face and took a step forward, dragging her stuffed rabbit behind her as she approached. Vincent's mouth came open in an uncharacteristic display of emotion and he let out some choking noises. He felt as though someone was crushing his chest in an iron grip, and his vision tunneled to just the sight of that little girl's wide blue eyes.

She closed the distance between them, and with one swift move, her tiny arms were around one of his legs. Her brown curly head barely came up past his knee. She looked up at him, staring expectantly. He looked back, his expression troubled.

"Why?" His voice was strangled.

She smiled again. "Why what, scary man?"

"What…are you doing?"

She giggled. "Hugging!"

"Why are you…hugging me?"

"Scary man sad," she said simply, squeezing his knee. She burrowed her face into the fabric of his pants. After a few minutes of this, he relaxed minutely, calming his breathing into a steady pace again. She released him, stepping back, dragging the stuffed bunny.

"Bye, bye, scary man!" The little girl waved.

"Wait!" Vincent called, reaching out a hand. She stared at him quizzically. He swallowed, his throat as dry as a desert. "I…I'm sorry…"

She blinked. "Sorry what, scary man?"

And then, she was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Vincent was walking in darkness again, trying to keep himself patient. His cloak fluttered behind him, tattered and shredded, forlorn.

_'Damn, this is annoying. Just…throw something at me, already. I'm tired of this void.'_

Be careful what you wish for, a wise man once said.

Out of the thick gloom, something caught Vincent's eye. He turned slightly to the left, directing his attention toward whatever it might have been. The figure was insubstantial around the edges, hazy to his eye, but as it approached, it became clearer, firming to become the tall, curvaceous body of a woman. She had long brown hair that was pulled haphazardly into something that might have been considered a bun at one point. There was a pencil stuck through the hair to hold it together. Her eyes were a dark, murky brown, accented by sharp cheekbones.

He sucked in air through his teeth, hissing, and tried to swallow, but only succeeded in choking on his own saliva as it went down wrong. He coughed, his eyes wide and focused only on the figure that was slowly approaching him. He regained his breath, but it didn't sound much different as he rasped out one word.

"Lucrecia."

She was a mere three feet away from him now, standing there in her lab coat and her simple jeans and blouse, just staring at him. Staring at him with those eyes. Slowly…slowly, slowly, slowly, she reached out a small, elegant hand to him, uncurling her thin fingers and leaving them there, hanging in the air, a standing invitation.

Vincent gazed at that hand for what seemed an eternity, the moments stretching on in silence. He looked her in the eyes again. Her mouth curled into a small, graceful smile and she spoke, her voice resonating to his core, clutching his gut in an iron fist.

"Vincent."

He dissolved. And suddenly, his hand was in hers, and it was cold, ice cold and he was spinning, spinning until he couldn't see and there were colors, melting into one another, making muddy streaks and dripping kaleidoscopes and then, and then there was nothing. There was nothing, and he was nothing, and his memory was nothing and he. knew. nothing.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Vincent…" A voice breathed in his ear, tickling the fine hairs there.

He groaned and rolled over, opening his eyes to see his wife smiling indulgently at him. Her grin widened as he sighed and buried his head under the pillow.

"Vincent…I told you so." A light, tickling pressure was her finger trailing down the back of his neck, down the crevice in his back, toying with the waistline of his boxers.

"'Crecia," he whined. "Leave me alone. I'm tired."

She laughed heartily. "Of course you're tired. We got home from that dinner party at two o'clock in the morning. Well, I shouldn't be saying anything about that, since we didn't actually go to sleep until an hour-and-a-half later." He could practically hear the smirk in her voice. A smile graced his features underneath the confines of the pillow.

He felt Lucrecia's weight shift on the bed, and he glanced over at the clock. Nine o' clock a.m., as usual. He lifted his arms and stretched out bodily, curling and uncurling his toes for a few satisfying _cracks_. Lucrecia was at the wardrobe, pulling on clothes. She stared at him from the mirror, sweeping her hair over one shoulder and smiling coyly. Vincent lifted his feet off the bed and set them on the floor, walking up behind her and snaking his arms around her waist, pressing his chest and hips into her body suggestively as he rested his head on her shoulder.

"Now, now, Vincent," she chastened playfully, "we have to go pick up the children from my sister's house, or else she'll wonder what we've been up to."

He smirked and released her, backing up some. "God forbid your sister have any notions of our sex life."

Vincent padded over to bathroom that was joined to the master bedroom and turned the knob for the shower spigot, leaving the water to run for a few moments so that it could heat up. He turned to the mirror, assessing his appearance, and lifted his left arm to run a hand through his hair. Before he could perform this perfunctory action however, he stopped short.

Vincent slowly brought his left arm up to eye level in the mirror, staring it in perplexity. It was a normal, flesh arm, like it was every other day of his life, but something was niggling at the back of his mind; something about that arm…

"_Hey, Vinnie, watch what you're doin' with those claws o' yours. They're freakin' dangerous. Almost clipped my elbow that time."_

_"I apologize."_

"Vincent. Vincent? Vincent, honey, are you just going to stand there and let that water run, or are you going to get in the shower? Nina expects us there to get the kids at ten."

Vincent snapped out of his stupor and turned to see Lucrecia staring at him, a delicate eyebrow lifted in his direction. He frowned. "Uh…yes, sorry."

She smiled. "It's early and you didn't get a lot of sleep. Maybe some hot water will wake you up." He nodded and stripped down, stepping into the shower and letting the hot water run down his body in slow, languid trickles.

Fifteen minutes, a shave, and a cup of coffee later, and Lucrecia and Vincent were on their way to Lucrecia's sister Nina's house to pick up their son and daughter, who they had left with Nina so that they could go to a dinner party with some of Vincent's coworkers. He was currently in a position for a possible promotion, and was doing his best to make a good impression on some of the higher-ups in the business. Since he and his wife had been invited along to a fancy night out at one of Midgar's most famous restaurants, it had been a prime opportunity to do just that.

Vincent pulled into his sister-in-law's driveway and put the car into park, going around to the passenger side door and opening it for Lucrecia. She stepped out as Nina opened the front door and looked out, waving cheerfully.

"Hi!" she called. "Patrick and Lizzie are in the playroom with the girls. Come on in and have a cup of coffee."

Vincent followed Lucrecia inside and bypassed the kitchen in favor of the playroom, where his children were interacting with their three cousins. He poked his head in through the door and shot an easy smile to his son, who immediately noticed his arrival, and then to his daughter, who looked up a few seconds later, when she heard her brother give a shout of delight.

"Daddy!" Patrick exclaimed, running forward and throwing his thin arms around Vincent's leg. Lizzie giggled and did the same, only to his other leg. Her dark, curly-haired head barely came up past his knee. Vincent's eyes crinkled at the corners as he looked down at her.

_She closed the distance between them, and with one swift move, her tiny arms were around one of his legs. Her brown curly head barely came up past his knee. She looked up at him, staring expectantly. He looked back, his expression troubled._

_"Why?" His voice was strangled. _

_She smiled again. "Why what, scary man?"_

_"What…are you doing?"_

_She giggled. "Hugging!"_

"Daddy, look at me! Daddy?"

Vincent shook himself, instantly forgetting whatever it was that had just troubled his mind and looked over to where Patrick was trying to get his attention, clad in a cowboy hat and boots. Lizzie had her thumb in her mouth, watching the spectacle as one of her cousins twined sticky fingers in the smaller girl's hair. Vincent strode over to her and picked his tiny daughter up, balancing her against the dent in his waist.

"Come on, Pat. It's time to go say 'bye to your Aunt Nina."

"Okay!"

Vincent stepped into the kitchen, where Lucrecia was leaned against the counter, sipping coffee from a mug and Nina was sitting at the kitchen table, doing the same. The women were chatting back and forth amicably, tossing smiles this way and that, catching up on family matters.

"Hi, Mommy!" Patrick said happily, running up to hug her around the knee as well.

"Hi, sweetie. Well, I guess this is our cue to leave. Call me and we'll have lunch sometime, Nina."

Nina rose and took Lucrecia's cup, kissing her on one cheek and giving her a brief hug. "I'll do that. See you later. Thanks for stopping by, Vincent."

Vincent gave her a small smile. "No, no, thanks for watching the kids. We really appreciate it." Lizzie giggled in assent.

Vincent buckled Lizzie and Patrick into separate car seats and, after making sure all systems were go, gave Lucrecia a wink and set them on a course for home.

"Hey, 'Crecia?" Vincent called from his place on the couch. The television flashed before him, casting a blue glow across the room. He lazily scratched his belly, yawning.

"Yes?"

"What's for dinner?"

Patrick threw a ball into the room and it bounced through his line of vision, making rubbery little _boing, boing_ noises. Lucrecia stuck her head in from the kitchen. "Hmm, I was thinking take-out. How's Wutainese food sound?"

_He stared down at the mass of oily noodles and steamed vegetables in the small cardboard bucket in front of him. Lifting one skeptical eyebrow, he looked at her across the table. "_What_…is _this_?"_

_She sighed and rolled her smoky gray eyes at him. "Duh, Vinnie. It's take-out."_

_"Take-out?"_

_She shot him a disbelieving look. "Man, you really were in that coffin for a long time, weren'tcha, Vinnie? It's food you order from a restaurant and they bring it to your house—or in this case, Tifa's bar."_

_"What kind of 'take-out' is it, then?" he asked, still visibly skeptical._

_"It's Wutainese food, you jerk. Listen, if it looks _that_ disgusting, then don't eat it. Gawd, you'd think I were trying to poison you from the look on your face." She was angry at him now._

_He sighed and grasped a pair of chopsticks, picking up a knot of noodles and a few vegetables with it. Tentatively, he brought it to his mouth and began to chew. It was actually rather good._

_"See? I told you so. Hmm…I didn't know the undead ate, Vinnie."_

_He glared, but somehow, around a mouthful of noodles, it didn't seem to have quite the same effect._

"Vincent, I _said_ how does Wutainese food sound?"

"Oh," he said, snapping out of his stupor. "Uh, yeah, that sounds fine, dear."

"Do you want anything specific?"

"There's a dish with noodles and vegetables. Do you know the name of it?"

"Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I'll get it for you."

"Thanks."

Vincent's brow was furrowed. Surely he was just imagining these things, these thoughts that kept coming to him. He hadn't had a lot of sleep the night before, so maybe his imagination was becoming overactive? Yes, that seemed reasonable. He'd just eat and then turn in early that night. It would all have a better look with a good night's rest.

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent's day was not going well. Work was getting hectic. There were papers that needed to be filled out, people that needed to be redirected, things that needed looking after, matters that needed rehashing. There was no end to the madness that was his daily job. Home would be a definite godsend for him.

For now, he pushed a hand through his terminally out-of-place hair and sighed, scratching his pen across the yellow paper of a legal pad, bearing down firmly. He scribbled the pen around a bit, but soon gave up, as it was clear that the utensil was running out of ink. He stared at what he had written and blindly reached for the cup of pens he kept at his desk. On accident, he swiped his hand across a tin of office supplies and knocked them off the counter and onto the floor, scattering rubber bands, paper clips, and strips of staples everywhere. He let out an exasperated burst of air and leaned under his desk to pick the little scattered bits up.

As he leaned up with his fist full of odds and ends, Vincent rapped his head sharply on the desk above him. Swearing, he popped up quickly and clutched his head with his free hand, clenching his eyes shut in pain.

"Ow…" he muttered.

"Something wrong, Valentine?"

Vincent opened his eyes to see the balding head of his coworker Nate, peering over the wall of the cubicle that divided them. Vincent shook his head, attempting to go back to his work.

Nate snickered. "You bumped your head on the desk. I heard it."

Glaring, Vincent reached for a rubber band and hooked it to his fingers in the shape of a gun, pointing it right at Nate's forehead. He shut one eye, aiming, and let the rubber band fly. It bounced off Nate's head and disappeared somewhere across the sea of cubicles. Nate glowered at Vincent, who was grinning at his long-time friend.

"Sheesh, Vin. That hurt. Didn't have to go shooting me in the head." He vanished behind the dividing wall, which was just as well, because Vincent's features had gone suddenly blank.

_He broke off abruptly with a choking noise, when he found himself looking cross-eyed down the barrel of a silenced pistol. _

'Pity about the upholstery…'

_Bzzzzz. Bzzzzz. Bzzzzz._

Vincent shook himself and answered his phone, which was vibrating in his pocket. He fished around for a moment and dug it out, flipping it open and holding it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Honey, I was just calling to tell you that when you get off work I need you to take the kids to the park. They've been begging all day, and I have my hands full. Would it be too much of a problem?"

Vincent resisted the urge to sigh. The godsend of home would not be immediately forthcoming. "It's fine, 'Crecia. I'll take them."

"Thanks, Vincent. I'll see you tonight."

"Right. 'Bye."

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent sank into a bench, digging his sandaled feet into the sand that had been laid down for the purpose of the playground. The sun was hot on his black hair, beating down mercilessly and making him happy for the fact that the deeper realms of the sand were cool on his half-bare feet. The fine grains sifted between his toes and he knew he would regret having it in his shoes later when he attempted to walk, but it was fine for then. He propped his arms up on the backside of the bench, having the feeling that he would be getting a sunburn quite soon.

Patrick was playing with Lizzie in the sand, digging a hole and piling what he dug up into a smooth hill. Soon enough, he would get bored with that and decide to take his sister to the seesaw. It was his favorite, and Lizzie just loved the attention in general. She idolized her brother.

Vincent's eyes scanned the surrounding area, watching the children at play, observing the other parents lounging, much like he was. Off to one corner of the sandbox, some kids were divided into two lines, directly opposite each other, all hands linked with the person to either side of them. They were shouting something along the lines of "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Kimmy right over!" Directly in front of him, a little ways beyond the playground, was a picnicking area where people were setting out plates, cups, and plastic utensils, chatting away and eating. Vincent directed his gaze somewhat to the left, drifting over sand and faces and didn't react quickly enough to dodge out of the way of the Frisbee that came flying out of that direction and smacked him directly in the face.

"_Oh, shit! Vinnie!"_

_Yuffie's face suddenly appeared in his vision, concerned and pale. She started babbling._

_"VinnieI'msosorryIdidn'tmeantodothatIwasjustmessingaroundandthenCloudsaidandthenitwaslikewhooshandIcouldn'tstopandohmygoshVinnieI'msosorryareyouokay?"_

_Vincent stared hard at Yuffie, hoping his brain wouldn't implode trying to decipher that. He blinked once, slowly, sure that his eyes looked slightly glazed. "I…"_

_"Oh, gosh, Vinnie, I didn't mean to!" _

_Yuffie launched herself forward and closed her arms around his waist tightly, squeezing his middle and pressing her face into his chest. Vincent stiffened, his eyes glued to the top of her head, staring at the strands of ruffled black hair there as her muffled voice floated up to meet his ears. The shuriken still clutched in the metal digits of his gauntlet hung there loosely._

_"Gawd, Vinnie, it's a good thing you have fast reflexes. I don't wanna think about what woulda happened if that'd hit you in the face. I'm such an idiot."_

_Vincent summoned his voice from the tangled strands that were his vocal cords. "Yuffie, it's…all right. I…forgive you."_

"Oh, crap!"

Vincent groaned and lifted a hand to rub the bridge of his nose as little stars burst before his eyes, spawning off tinier, baby stars. That had hurt.

"Hey, mister, are you okay?"

Vincent turned his head to squint over at the young boy that was bending over him, staring with wide brown eyes. He resisted the urge to snap that _no_, he was not okay and then give the boy the one finger salute.

Instead, he mustered his voice and said, "It's fine. Just…be more careful next time."

The kid picked up his disc and made a break for it across the playground with his partner, the one who had been tossing it with him. They ran out of Vincent's slowly clearing sight. He hunched his shoulders, trying to ignore the way his nose was throbbing and the way his eyes were watering. He _really_ wanted to go home.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Vincent, what happened?" Lucrecia's voice was concerned as she examined his bruised face. He exhaled shortly, feeling a little too stressed to be bothered with much.

"I got hit in the face with one of those flying disc toys."

"Oh, dear. Here, you just sit down and relax. I'll take care of everything for a while. I can tell you've had a bad day." She placed a hand on his shoulder and gently guided him to the sofa, setting some pillows behind him and pushing a footstool toward him. He gratefully grabbed the remote and sent her a small smile of thanks as she bustled out.

Vincent grabbed the remote to the television and pressed the power button, channel surfing monotonously. There never really was anything interesting on at that time of day, he remembered, as he flicked the "next channel" button mechanically. News. Reality show. Eighties series. Behind the scenes documentary. News. Cartoons. Nature documentary on big cats—wait.

A woman with a short brown ponytail and serious eyes was saying something to a camera pointed in her direction. "—new species of big cat has been found. The first in a few thousand years. We believe it is a hybrid of some kind, created by interspecies breeding." The woman turned around and walked toward a sort of containment area, with a glass viewing window. She gestured and the camera directed its lens through the window, zooming in on an animal curled up in the corner, licking one paw nonchalantly.

It had a long body and a square head that was covered in a rich, thick mane of red fur. The animal's whole body was different shades of rich reds and dark oranges. Its tail swished back and forth, blurring to look like…like...

"_Hey, Red, why's your tail always on fire like that? Is it 'cause of, you know, the experiments?"_

_One golden eye peered at Yuffie passively. "Yes, Yuffie. Hojo did many things to me, among them making me very attuned to fire magic. It had some odd effects on my person, one of them being the eternal flame on the end of my tail."_

_Yuffie nodded, deep in thought, staring at Red's lashing tail as it traveled back and forth, back and forth._

Vincent squeezed his eyes shut and hastily clicked the "next channel" button several more times. He opened them to the scene of a carnival at night, with flashing lights and an array of colors so vast, it made his eyes hurt. Little girls and boys ran around, giggling, and screams could be heard coming from the faster rides. The colors blurred in his eyes, becoming nothing but an indecipherable mass…

"_C'mon, Vince!" cackled the robotic cat maniacally. Vincent resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead let out a tiny, inaudible sigh as his hand was tugged by the giant mog. _

_"Yeah, Vinnie, what's wrong with you? Have you ever even _been_ to Gold Saucer? Quit being such a wet blanket!" Yuffie smiled cheekily at him as the others smothered their laughter behind their hands. _

_"Yeah, Vinnie!" Cid mimicked in a high falsetto. Vincent turned his head enough to just look at the pilot with one red eye, which, to normal people would have been more than a little intimidating, but Cid just sucked in on his cigarette and blew smoke out through the spaces between his teeth with a wicked grin._

Vincent was shaking his head, with his hands clenching into fists, one of them squeezing the remote tightly. He hit the "next channel" button hastily. It settled on a science channel that was doing a documentary on genetic research. A patient was laid out on a lab table, peering up at different sharp, wicked-looking objects that were pointed in his direction. Stark white walls surrounded the patient on every side, and they glared out of the screen, toward Vincent, blinding him.

_Vincent opened his eyes slowly, disliking the gummy, sticky feeling that was holding them partially closed. He reached a hand up to rub them, but realized that he was restrained, and couldn't move any of his limbs. He snapped wide awake, staring around at the various sharp, shiny implements on all sides, pointed ominously at him. There was an immense, throbbing pain in his left arm, but he couldn't reach his head far enough off of the table to look at it._

_"Awake, I see," said a familiar voice. Vincent's eyes darted over to see Hojo looming over the foot of whatever surface he was lashed too. He realized he was dressed in a white hospital gown, commonly used for patients in surgery. _

_"What are you doing to me?" Vincent growled, his eyes spitting fire._

_Hojo chuckled. It was not a nice sound. "Patience, Vincent. Your answers will come soon enough, and by that time, I'm certain you'll have wished you hadn't asked."_

Vincent had dropped the remote next to him on the couch, and was making strangled noises in the back of his throat. What was going on? What was this? He needed to make it stop. He pounded a fist on the remote, and the channel changed again, shifting to an action movie with a large, buff main character whose name was probably something along the lines of Biff or Max. Vincent struggled to watch it. Anything to distract him, anything to get these…these _pictures_ out of his head.

He relaxed minutely as the action hero got into a fist fight with several goons that were working for the main villain. Biff or Max dispatched of them quickly and got into a head-to-head witty verbal sparring match with the head villain. Just as Vincent was starting to calm down a little more, the villain said something and snapped his fingers, and a team of ninja jumped out of nowhere, attacking Biff or Max relentlessly.

"_Who…_are_ you?"_

_"I'm the Great Materia Hunter Yuffie! The stealthiest and best ninja on all of Gaia!"_

_Vincent watched as Cloud stared at this bony slip of a girl with a single, dubious eyebrow raised. "And…you're telling us this…why?"_

_She shot him a dirty look. "You mean you've never heard of me?"_

_"No."_

_"Ugh! Who _are_ you people?"_

_Cloud gestured to everyone and turned away. "Come on, everyone. We're leaving."_

_"Wait! I wanna come with you!"_

Vincent's teeth were grinding against each other. He knocked the remote onto the floor and it smashed face-down into the carpet, apparently pressing the "next channel" button, for the television skipped about thirty channels and came to rest on a news interview with a woman in a smart, crisp business suit. She was being questioned by a reporter in an equally smart, crisp business suit.

"So, in your new book, you talk about your battle with the blood disease and the search for a cure?" the reporter inquired.

"That's right. There's still no cure, but we're working towards it every day."

"_There's still no cure, Mr. Valentine. We're working as hard as we can to find one, every day of the week. Moping about her bed side isn't going to help anyone, especially not you."_

_Vincent's angry scarlet eyes snapped to the doctor, overflowing with rage. He bared his teeth at the man, attempting to intimidate, but only earning himself a scowl in return. _

_"Yes, acting like an animal will help the situation greatly, Mr. Valentine. Go home. Get some sleep. Come back in three days, and I'll let you back in."_

_"Like you could make me leave," Vincent bit out._

_The doctor's eyes narrowed. "_I_ can't. But I know people who can." He snapped open a cellular phone dialed a number, tapping his foot impatiently as he listened to it ring. _

_Apparently, the person on the other end answered, because the doctor said "Hello. Yes, this is Doctor Hanamira. This is Cloud Strife, correct?" The doctor shot a glance at Vincent, clearly implying something threatening. Vincent's eyes shrunk to slits. "No, there's no problem, yet. I was calling about your friend, Vincent. He'd like to say hello."_

_The doctor shoved the phone at Vincent. Vincent grabbed it in his claw-hand and crushed it in an instant. Vincent did not appreciate being threatened._

_He rose and let the smashed bits of the phone fall to the floor, tinkling as they hit the stark linoleum. "I'll see you in three days," he snarled venomously._

Vincent's vision began to waver. The objects around him were becoming fuzzy and indistinct at the edges. He fell off the couch with an audible thump and curled into a ball, clutching himself protectively. His breathing was fast and shallow, and he almost didn't hear Lucrecia.

"Vincent, would you like some—Vincent! What happened? What's wrong? _Vincent_?" His wife reached down a hand and shook his shoulder, trying to snap him out of it.

No. Not his wife. Lucrecia hadn't married him; she had married Hojo. Wait, Hojo? Who was Hojo? No, no, Hojo had put the demons in his head. Hojo had given him the gauntlet arm. What gauntlet arm? He had a human arm. What was a gauntlet arm?

"Daddy?"

A new voice. Patrick, his son. No, Vincent didn't have any sons. Vincent didn't know anyone named Patrick. He was a monster. Monsters don't have sons. But, yes, he had a son. He was married to Lucrecia and he had a son and a daughter and a job and a sister-in-law and he might get promoted and his boss really liked him and he had taken his children to the park just that day and Lucrecia was cooking dinner and he was watching television and he had his feet propped up and his face was sore from that toy hitting him and—

No.

It was all fake. It wasn't real. It was all a lie.

"It's all a lie."

Everything went silent around him. The static that had been rising in his ears stopped. Lucrecia stopped shaking him. Patrick stopped wailing. The world stopped moving sickeningly.

Lucrecia's voice met his ears, deadpan. "What." It wasn't even a question, it was so flat.

Vincent…was angry. "You heard me," he ground out. "It's. All. A. Lie. IT'S ALL A LIE!"

He leapt to his feet and whirled to face the illusionary Lucrecia, but when he looked she was gone. He looked around, eyes throwing daggers of hatred, as the room faded out of existence. He looked down at himself. His clothes were black again, adorned with belts. His boots were brass and sharp. His guns were at his sides. His cape was hanging there limply, lifelessly. His hair was long, falling down his back. His arm was once again metal, cold and unfeeling. Everything was back to normal.

Vincent made a disgusted noise.

Hah. Normal.


	6. Chapter 6

"_Vincent, I think what you fail to realize is that you are not some _martyr_, some glorified hero out to save her. She doesn't _want_ to be saved, you cretin. She doesn't _want_ your attentions. She's having _my_ child; I would think that that would be enough to turn you away, seeing as her previous vehement refusals of your lovesick fawning haven't seemed to penetrate the thickness of your skull."_

_The poisonous nature of this conversation was quickly escalating into something that might turn physical, if Vincent couldn't rein in his mounting fury. Hojo continued to circle him with a slow, shuffling walk, slouched over, hands clasped behind his back._

_"What, did you think that you would be her _savior_? Did you think that you would come to rescue her from the big, bad, mean clutches of horrible Professor Hojo? I have some information that you might find quite shocking, Vincent. Lucrecia loves me. She chose to share my bed once, and she continued to do so. When has she ever done that for you? Never. What made you think she felt _anything_ for you, Vincent? What did she tell you?" Hojo let out a few small, harsh laughs. "Ah, my Lucrecia, she _is_ a sly one. She uses people like no other woman I've come across."_

_"Lucrecia would never lie to me! It's you she's lying to, Hojo."_

_The corners of Hojo's thin, pale lips began to curl up at the edges. When they finished, they were what formed the cruel smile that twisted his features. "Oh, poor, misguided Vincent Valentine. She really does have you wrapped around her lovely little finger." He made several, rapid clicking noises with his tongue, shaking his head like a reproachful parent. "You never really were an extremely bright one, were you?"_

_Vincent snarled. "You're blind, Hojo. What kind of monster would do experiments on his own child?"_

_Hojo raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "Why, Vincent, I thought you _knew_. I mean, you've tried to convince Lucrecia otherwise, but she still wants to go through with the experiments, so I thought that would be a hint as to the fact that _she's doing it willingly_."_

_"You've poisoned her mind, Hojo. You've influenced her, brainwashed her. She doesn't realize what kind of creature you really are."_

_"What kind of creature I really am? What kind of person are you to judge me? Your line of work does not exactly grant you the ability to judge others. Just how many people have you killed with no remorse at all? How many people's lives have you shattered, Vincent? Did you ever stop to think that those people had families and homes and lives to go back to? Hmmm? No, I guess not. Compared to what you do on a daily basis, _my_ line of work is almost…tame."_

_"Those people I killed died instantly. You're putting them through mindless hours of insane torture and pain and shaping them into things they were never supposed to be. Lucrecia wants no part of that, and you know it!"_

_"I know it? Are you so sure of what you speak, Vincent? Lucrecia is devoted to me. She would do anything for me! She _loves _me. She's giving our child to me for the good of science through her own free will. She wants this just as much as I do, possibly even more."_

_"There's a thick line between devotion and love, Hojo, and Lucrecia is far from overstepping it. She's afraid of you."_

_"On the contrary, Vincent. I think there's a very fine line between devotion and love, and I think Lucrecia has already made her choice in the matter. You're just too blind to see that the one she fears is not me, but a man who murders others in cold blood daily. I am tired of this conversation. Leave."_

_Vincent saw red, he was so angry. "No, Hojo, I'm not through with you!"_

_The Turk made a dash toward the scientist, determined to get his hands around the man's throat, to squeeze until there was no more breath in the man's body. In his anger, he did not see Hojo very quickly pull a gun out. His anger was not so thick, that he didn't hear the shot and feel the intense pain, however. He fell to his knees, gasping and clutching his chest. A dark stain was blossoming too quickly for it to be safe on the front of his suit._

_Hojo stood a yard away from him. Vincent stared at the black-clad legs and the shiny leather shoes. "You're a very angry person, Vincent Valentine. It's easy to see. I think we should do something constructive with it." One of those shiny leather shoes came up swiftly to deliver a hard kick to his chin, and the world was no more._

_The next thing Vincent remembered from that point on was waking on a lab table, restrained and confused._

- - - - - - - - - -

That last one had been…cruel. It hadn't been the physical pain of the one before it, or the unchecked emotions of the first one, but it had been rather painful all the same. That was an invasion of his psyche all the way. A low blow. Below the belt. He figured it would just get worse from there. The challenges seemed progressively more difficult as they came. He figured by the time he were to get to the end, _if_ he got to the end, he'd feel a thousand years old.

The end? When was the end of this? How much more of this was he going to have thrown at him? _Was_ there an end? This had been done before. If it had been finished, there was an end.

He hoped.

Whoever ran this place—Pluto, Satan, whoever—sure had a unique sense of humor. Unique being the primary euphemism for sadistic. Then again, Vincent figured that if you were going to be the head of the netherworld, you had to derive _some_ pleasure out of dealing with souls of all shapes and sizes and temperaments. Vincent wondered if he was one of the more interesting to come along in a while. Had there been anyone else looking for the lost soul of their friends, lovers, or family? How far had they gotten?

Vincent had a feeling that he was the exception, rather than the rule.

He stumbled as he walked into a lab table.

His surroundings had completely changed, and now, instead of the black void, they were eerily familiar. He was in a room comprised of four white walls. There was no door, but Vincent noted the place it should have been, remembering perfectly. The floor was blank white linoleum, cold and hard and stark. There was not a speck of dust anywhere in the room and the temperature was uncomfortably cool, to keep the environment sterile. The fluorescent lights overhead shined with pure, artificial whiteness, illuminating everything perfectly with an all-consuming glow.

Around the room were counters with trays and tools. Some of the tools looked like they would be used for household maintenance. They were sharp, with nasty-looking attachments and menacing gears and switches. There were outlets with which to plug them in all over the room. Some were already hooked up, their plugs stuck deep into the sockets, the cords winding down and falling in loops off of the counters.

Vincent's eyes slowly took everything in with increasing horror as he backed away from the lab table, step by step, unconscious of even his own movement until he felt the backs of his upper thighs hit one of the counters behind him. There was nothing else to do but look at whatever might be lying on that lab table. He forced his gaze down, dreading what he was to see, but instead, saw exactly the opposite.

Strapped to the operating table, his hands by his side and his skin pale as death, was Professor Hojo.

Vincent just managed to keep his mouth from dropping open in surprise. His eyes widened, and he clutched the counter behind him with his human hand, suddenly in need of support. Hojo's position was very, very familiar to him. It was exactly as he knew he had looked, strapped to the lab table and powerless, having demons and mechanical arms implanted on his person. He was dressed in a white hospital shift, the kind of thing they put you in when you go into surgery, and his hair was in disarray, the normal ponytail he kept it in mussed and falling apart. Vincent watched the small movement, the steady rise and fall, of Hojo's chest, transfixed.

What _was_ this? Why was Hojo on that lab table and not him?

For few moments, nothing happened. Then Hojo's eyes opened. They darted around wildly, trying to take in everything. Vincent knew exactly what he was feeling. Vincent knew exactly what it felt like to wake up in an unfamiliar room, with stark white walls, and stark white floors, and blinding white lights, unable to move, confused and sickened. Vincent knew exactly what it felt like.

Hojo's breathing had turned erratic. He was struggling against the bonds; Vincent could see from the way the muscles on his arms and legs flexed, and the way his hips came slightly away from the table as he arched his back just slightly, as much as the straps would let him. Vincent suddenly realized that it wasn't likely that Hojo could see him, with his head restrained like it was, and only his peripheral vision at hand.

Cautiously, soundlessly, Vincent took one step forward, then another, and then another, until he was at the foot of the lab table, staring down at Hojo. This position was also very, very familiar to him. Hojo seemed to realize that there was a presence near his feet and focused his gaze toward the gunslinger looming over him. His eyes were owlish behind the thick lenses of his glasses, magnified. He blinked, once, twice, and his brows lowered even further than they had been, bunching over his eyes, darkening his features. This was all very familiar to Vincent Valentine.

Except for one thing: the roles were reversed.

"Vincent," Hojo spat.

"Hojo," Vincent responded calmly.

"Well, go on then. Don't just stand there and look like an idiot. You never were a very bright one, but it shouldn't take you this long to start this business." Hojo made an impatient face and glared, sending Vincent straight from confusion to even more confusion.

"Hojo, you're talking nonsense. What business?"

"To any other person, it'd be obvious 'what business,'" Hojo said scornfully. "Apparently, you're just as slow as ever, Valentine."

Vincent lifted one eyebrow, feeling his gut start to simmer with his long-held hatred for the man. Every time he thought it was dead, it came to life with just as much power as before. Every time he thought he was free from the clutches of that anger, it sprang at him, fangs bared and claws out.

"Come now, Vincent," Hojo drawled mockingly. "Surely you know why I'm here. Surely you realize why I'm the one stuck to a lab table, and you're the one holding all the tools."

Vincent's lips tightened behind his cloak. He was beginning to get the gist of what Hojo was saying. Hojo was helpless, and Vincent held his fate in his hand. Vincent had all the tools he needed right here. He had waited so long for an opportunity such as this, for a way to make Hojo pay for all the crimes that had been committed against Vincent himself, for all the evils that he had forced on Lucrecia, for all the people he had hurt with his experiments.

It must have shown on his face in some way, for Hojo's eyes lit up with a strange light. It didn't look pleasant. "Oh, now you're getting it, Vincent. Now you get what I'm talking about." He chuckled. "This is your _chance_, Vincent. This is your moment to hurt me, to make me know what it feels like, to make me _pay_ for my _crimes_. Isn't that what you want?"

Vincent was silent. Hojo took this as an agreement. "Poor, poor, Vincent Valentine. Stuck with the weight of the world on his shoulders, with the sins of the people crushing him. Vincent Valentine, the _martyr_. Vincent Valentine, the sacrificial lamb. Vincent Valentine would do anything for his Lucrecia, anything for his friends. What fool quest are you out on this time, Vincent? Who are you trying to 'save'? Who are you forcing your good will upon?"

Vincent's gut roiled with wrath and loathing. He stared down at Hojo, unconsciously clenching his human hand into a fist. His eyes burned, and his nerve endings sang with white-hot fury. His brows lowered a tiny bit. Hojo's eyes brightened with glee and a sick smile adorned his features as he giggled, half-crazed.

"She's _dead_, Vincent. People die, people get killed, people's lives end. She's not coming back, and you're a _fool_ to meddle with what should not be mucked about in. You think that someone who's died, someone who's left that horrible excuse for living they call the Planet would ever want to return? The afterlife is not something one wants to return from, Valentine."

Vincent's eyes narrowed, and he finally spoke, his voice low and controlled. "If all that's true, Hojo, then why are you here, instead of enjoying your afterlife?"

Hojo's lip curled into a sneer. "The netherworld is no picnic for those of us who have done wrong, Vincent. However, I would never return to the pathetic life I had before this. It's only because of you and your moronic mission that I am here now. If it weren't for that, my soul would be left at peace."

Vincent just stood there, unable to bring himself to even move in the presence of this man, this man who had haunted his dreams for years, who had been one of the only people to ever bring him to his knees, to ever overpower him. It had all been for one thing, for one woman. He had been blinded; blinded and young and in love.

"I initially thought," Hojo's voice cut into his thoughts, "that after it had happened _one_ time that you'd learn the advantages of letting go, Vincent. But on second thought, I study your behavior, and what I know of you, and I realize that, no, you wouldn't learn. You are simply too thick headed—driven for one cause, one thing, even as it hurts yourself and causes those around you pain. You could never take no for an answer."

Vincent's tight-knit control wasn't slipping, and his body was humming with the effort. "People change, Hojo. No may be taken for an answer when it _is_ the answer."

Hojo let out a short bark of laughter. "Naïve as ever, I see, Vincent. Did you ever stop to think what this girl, whatever her name might be, might think of you dashing off to rescue her like she's some damsel in distress? Did you ever think that she might _like_ being dead?"

Vincent schooled his expression to blankness, despite how that thought made him reel. What if Yuffie didn't want to leave? What if Yuffie didn't want to go back to the living world, with all the duties of being a ruler, with all the stresses of running an entire country? It was entirely possible that she wished to stay there, in the netherworld, where she had peace and quiet and could do whatever she wanted to do without people bothering her daily with the questions and problems that came with overseeing a whole nation.

Vincent lifted his gaze to meet Hojo's. "That is for her to decide. If, when I get to her, she decides that she wishes to stay here," at this point, Vincent had to pause momentarily, "to remain in the netherworld, then that is her choice." She deserved that much. Yuffie deserved this choice, just as she had deserved the opportunity to live a long, healthy life amongst her citizens, restoring Wutai to its former glory, as she had been doing for all of her life. Vincent just had to get to her, and then his job would be done.

"You do all this for nothing, Vincent. Your loyalty is misplaced. Where does it come from, this loyalty? Why do you pursue this so relentlessly? There is nothing for you here. She will not go with you. No one would choose the living world over their own personal paradise."

"That may be so," Vincent said levelly, "but it changes nothing."

"Nothing you do here will have a purpose. You cannot go anywhere from here, Vincent. There's no way out. You're stuck here, with me. What are you going to do? You're not smart enough to find a way out. You'll never complete what you set out to do. Just like you couldn't save Lucrecia, you will never save this woman you so fully and completely throw yourself after. Vincent Valentine, infinitely misguided, infinitely idiotic."

Hojo started to laugh, a harsh, rasping sound, the laugh of a man gone mad. He laughed and laughed and laughed, the air rising from his lungs in short, loud bursts. His body was wracked with it, shaking the table, so powerful was his crazed amusement. The sound filled Vincent's ears and poured into him, filtering down into the very core of him, into parts of him that he kept locked away tight, away from the prying eyes of others and away from even himself. It was the key to unlocking the chains that held him in check. He felt himself start to come apart at the seams, stretching and pulling and stressing the restraints that held the baser side of him.

He lost it.

With an inarticulate sound of anger, Vincent grabbed the nearest delicate looking object and hurled it with all the force he could summon. It shattered into a million little pieces, making a horrible noise as it did so, the little fragments hitting the floor with little tinkling sounds, bouncing and scattering across the white tile. It felt so good to see its destruction that he grabbed another and hurled it the same way. He destroyed another and another and another, until the ground was coated with glass shards and pieces of plastic and important bits of metal. Until the plaster of the wall was ruined, ragged and scratched, with dents and impressions from the scientific instruments colliding with them. All the while, Hojo's manic laughter persisted, deafening him to anything that had anything to do with sanity.

Then, it stopped. Vincent paused, panting with rage, shaking and sweating. It was too quiet, and the air in the room pressed on him from every direction, choking and stifling him. It was all too much, just too much.

Hojo's voice, rasping and quiet, cut through the air like a whip crack.

"You're a very angry person, Vincent. Angry and bitter. You've waited a very long time to do something with that anger, to use it against the one who created it. You know exactly what I'm here for, and you know exactly what you want to do."

Vincent turned and walked back over to the steel table, the tiny debris crunching under his unfeeling brass boots as he did so. They were loud to his ears, too loud. Everything was too loud, too cold, too bright. Everything was so white, so, so white.

The pale gunslinger leaned over the other man until their faces were only a few inches apart. Hojo's eyes looked glazed and crazy, and Vincent's eyes were on fire with malice.

Hojo's lips curled slowly up, the corners of his lips creeping up, steadily upward, until they formed a smug, self-satisfied smile. "Vincent," he breathed. "You hate me, Vincent. Don't you? You hate me totally and completely."

Vincent stared at him for a long, tense moment. Then, quietly, controlled, "Yes."

Hojo's smile broadened. "Your arm looks as if you take good care of it. Does it work correctly? Do you have problems with it? Did you ever learn how to use your right hand? I understand that your left hand was dominant. That's a shame." He paused to let that sink in. And then, "How is the Galian Beast? How are Hellmasker and Death Gigas?" Hojo let out a breathy laugh of amusement. "How is…Chaos?"

Lightning fast, Vincent whirled around and grabbed a scalpel from one of the equipment trays he had missed in his moment of fury. He bent back over Hojo's body on the table, bringing the wickedly sharp blade to rest where the man's throat beat with the pulse of his lifeblood. Hojo never even flinched. He just stared at Vincent with an almost amused expression, with that smile still hanging there on his thin features. Time stood still as they stared each other down.

The cold metal of the scalpel's edge pressed into Hojo's throat, surely drawing a thin line of blood by this point. Vincent's hand was steady, pressing the blade just enough for it to hurt. He wanted this so badly, he wanted to hurt Hojo, he wanted Hojo to feel that pain.

"That's right, Vincent," Hojo said. "Hurt me. It's what you want. It's what you _need_, isn't it? It will make you feel good, my blood on your hands, running through your fingers, staining your skin. It'll make you feel better, like a whole person again. Do it, Vincent. You know what you want."

_You know what you want._

Vincent _did_ know what he wanted. He wanted to make Hojo scream. He wanted to make Hojo writhe. He wanted Hojo to know what it felt like to wake up in the middle of the night, broken out in a cold sweat, ready to run from things that weren't there. He wanted Hojo to know what it felt like to carry around a heavy claw as a left arm, to have to learn how to use the hand that you had never had to use before. He wanted Hojo to feel what it was like to be totally and completely in love with someone and then have that person shaft him, have that person be hurt by the very man she had chosen over him. He wanted Hojo to know what it felt like to be feared, to be seen as a monster. He wanted Hojo to know what it felt like to have demons in his head, to have to maintain a constant and tenuous control on his anger at anything and anyone, for fear that those demons could take over and hurt those he loved.

He wanted Hojo to know what it felt like to fear himself. He wanted Hojo to know what it felt like to hate himself.

Vincent's hand tightened on the handle of scalpel. All it would take was one swipe, one jerk of the wrist, and it would all be over.

It struck him then. Hojo would never feel that pain. Hojo would never know what any of those things were like. Killing Hojo would accomplish nothing, but the taking of another life, whether it be deserved or not. Killing Hojo would only make him exactly what Hojo himself was: a killer. It would only lower Vincent to the scientist's level. Hojo would never learn anything from Vincent's slaughter of him, and it was then that Vincent realized that he had to move on.

_I initially thought that after it had happened _one_ time that you'd learn the advantages of letting go…_

That was it. He had to let go. He had to let it go and move on now, or he would never do it. He had more important things than revenge to worry about. He had bigger goals. Yuffie needed this chance. This journey was not for Vincent Valentine. No, this journey was for Yuffie Kisaragi.

Carefully, Vincent drew the scalpel away from Hojo and straightened, letting his arm fall to his side. The blade slipped from his limp fingers with a clatter, like a punctuation mark. Hojo watched him this whole time, his eyes followed the process of the scalpel as it fell to the floor, then darting back up to Vincent's face.

"What's the matter, Vincent? Afraid? Don't have it in you? I knew you'd never be able to do it. You're just a weakling, Vincent. Naïve, stupid, and weak. That's all you'll ever be."

Vincent regarded him coldly. "I am as weak as they come, Hojo, but I will never be as disgusting as _you_."

Something caught Vincent's eye at the other side of the room. He looked up to see that a door had appeared on the far wall, where he knew one should have been. As he walked to it, the noise the fragments made suddenly didn't seem so loud. The air suddenly didn't seem so thick. And as he walked to it, the walls suddenly didn't seem so white.

- - - - - - - - - -

_Vincent was at the third annual AVALANCHE gathering, this time held at the Wutai palace. He was seated on a floor cushion at the end of the table, staring at his tea cup and the assorted cakes on the plate in front of him. He wasn't hungry or thirsty, and he wasn't interested in joining in the ridiculous dances that the rest of his peers were creating. He preferred to keep to himself. _

_ He watched as Cloud pulled Tifa to her feet and whirled her into a fast-paced sort of waltz that had just begun to play. Barret was dancing with Marlene, one huge hand holding her tiny one and twirling her around on her tip toes. The numerous ruffles on her dainty pink dress swirled into a lively cloud of fabric around her shins. Reeve was conversing quietly with Red XIII at the refreshment table. Cid was pulling Shera around the room. They had been married for three years at that point, and it was common to see that Shera had coaxed Cid into more than one dance. Most were of the opinion that he only gave in because it was Shera. He never was able to resist when she smiled at him._

_Vincent was so absorbed in his observation of the other occupants of the room that he failed to notice the approach of a certain young ninja until she had reached over him from behind to stealthily snatch one of his icing-laden cakes. She popped it into her mouth and stood chewing a moment, looking at him as he stared back placidly. She swallowed and smiled at him. _

_"Care to dance, Vinnie?"_

_Vincent lifted a dark, imposing brow at her in answer. _

_She frowned. "Aw, c'mon, Vinnie! It's just a harmless waltz. You don't really have to do anything but a few different steps. You can't sit here at this table the _whole_ time!"_

_"Yuffie, I do not wish to dance."_

_"But, Vinnie, it'd only be one time, I promise, and then I wouldn't bug you anymore. Please?"_

_"No, thank you, Yuffie."_

_She was beginning to look a little irritated with him. "You're just afraid to dance, Vincent Valentine."_

_He shot her a glare that he vaguely hoped might singe her eyebrows off. Maybe then she would leave him alone._

_"That's it, isn't it?" she asked, astonished. "You can't dance. Vincent Valentine, man of wonders, _can't dance_! What a riot! Well, Vinnie, if I'da known that, I wouldn'ta bothered you." She shrugged, and started walking toward Reeve. "Well," she threw over her shoulder, "Reeve said he doesn't like to dance, but once I tell him you can't dance, he'll understand."_

_Vincent rolled his eyes internally and stood up, catching up with Yuffie and tapping her on the shoulder. She turned around with innocent eyes and looked up at him, grinning from ear to ear. After fitting her hand into his own, she pulled him forcefully out onto the dance floor as another waltz began, this one with a slightly different tune to it. He swept her around the floor skillfully, the moves coming with ease from years of practice. She stared up at him inquiringly as they moved._

_"Hey, Vinnie, where'd ya learn to dance like this?" _

_"When I was young, my mother made me take ballroom dancing," he murmered._

_ She snorted ungracefully. "_That_ sure is hard to picture. So, Vinnie, how's it been on your end of things? Haven't really heard from you much lately. Where've you been?"_

_Vincent was silent for a few moments. Yuffie continued the steps, waiting for him to answer. When the answer was not forthcoming, her brows lowered, and she looked slightly concerned._

_"D'you mean to tell me that you've _still_ been staying in that moldy old coffin? _That's_ why no one can get in touch with you? I talked to Cloud and everyone else, and they said they had the same problem. I had to actually get Cid to fly out to Nibelheim to pick you up! Why do you do that, Vinnie? Why would you stay in that gross, depressing place all the time?"_

_Vincent answered in a level, quiet tone. "I must atone for my sins, Yuffie."_

_Her brows lowered more, but now she looked slightly angry. "What sins could you possibly have left to 'atone' for, Vinnie? God dammit, you helped save the world. What else do you think you need to do? What did you do that was so bad?"_

_Vincent turned them around, pulling Yuffie along with him. His cloak fluttered and swirled around their legs. "It is none of your concern, Yuffie."_

_She looked up at him angrily. "It _is_ my concern, Vinnie! I'm your _friend_! That's what friends do! It's…" She hesitated. "It's about that woman, isn't it? That Lucrecia lady?"_

_Vincent came to an abrupt halt. Yuffie almost stumbled at the sudden change in movement. She caught herself, but he moved away, staring down at her coldly._

_"As I said, Yuffie, it is none of your concern." _

_He turned away and stalked out, leaving through one of the doors. Yuffie followed him, matching his rapid pace, only a few yards behind him as he headed for the palace doors._

_"Vincent, wait! Stop! I didn't mean to make you mad!"_

_Vincent kept walking._

_"You're just gonna leave the party without saying good bye to everyone, Vinnie? You're just gonna be mean to all your friends that way?" _

_Vincent didn't stop._

_"You listen to me when I'm trying to talk to you, Vincent! Don't have your back turned to me!"_

_He didn't turn around. _

_Vincent felt a blow between his shoulder blades, and berated himself for not listening to the little voice in the back of his head that had told him that was going to happen. He staggered a bit and regained his balance, and started navigating the hallways of Wutai's castle once more. _

_"Fine, if you won't turn around and listen to me like someone with some fucking sense, then I'll have to make a scene and _scream_ some sense into you, Vincent!_

_"Don't pretend you can keep things from AVALANCHE. We know more about you than you've let us. I know a lot more about Lucrecia and what happened with her than you think, Vinnie! It's not your fault. D'you hear me? It's _not your fault

_"She was a harpy, usin' you the way she did. She _chose_ to go to Hojo. She chose to let Hojo experiment on their baby. Hojo didn't force her to do anything, you big idiot! Can't you see that she was using you the whole time? You couldn't have done anything to stop her."_

_Yuffie's voice was ragged and uneven now, breaking off in different places. Vincent's pace slowed, until he was stopped completely. She stopped screaming, but her voice was just as loud to his ears. "You…don't get it, Vinnie. I know what it's like…losing someone you love. I know…what it's gotta feel like. I…I…"_

_She paused, and Vincent turned slowly around to face her. Her eyes were bright and moist, and there were wet tracks down her cheeks. She spoke again as he watched, hypnotized by the glistening tears that slowly charted a course down her face. "Sometimes, you gotta let things go. Sometimes you gotta move on. You gotta live, and you gotta live because you wanna live, not because you wanna atone for 'sins' or because you wanna live for Lucrecia or whatever else it might be. You can't always let the past blind you, Vinnie." He stared. "Sometimes," and here, she choked a bit, stumbling over the words, "sometimes you gotta look to see what's right in front of you."_

_There was silence for a moment, then Yuffie turned and fled, leaving him to stand there with her words ringing in his ears._

_Maybe he would stay for the party._


	7. Chapter 7

Vincent stepped out the door, and straight into the void. This void, however, was slightly different. It was dotted with stars, millions and billions of stars, glittering, winking at him gently, as if to let him in on some great, cosmic joke. He hung there, suspended in space for a few short seconds, and then, he fell.

Shinra's failed attempt at launching their rocket into space with Cid Highwind as pilot had not been the only venture into the realms of the final frontier. Shinra had launched many experimental satellites into orbit to take pictures and to collect data of the atmospheric conditions of the universe outside of their own planet, Gaia. Much had been learned from these expeditions, including things like the existence of asteroids, what comets were mad of, and also, the fact that space was a void.

Which led Vincent to wonder, just _how_ was he breathing?

He fell, feeling nothing that someone would normally feel when falling through the deepest chasms of the universe. There was no air, his cloak did not billow, his hair did not lash at his face, and his clothes did not flatten out against his skin. He just plummeted, faster and faster, trying to let go of the fact that he was defying all laws of physics, falling in space. It was entirely possible to move in space, to propel oneself by the propulsion of another object away from one's person, but this was something completely different.

He rocketed downward—or what he assumed was downward; you never could tell when you were in an infinite vacuum of darkness—and blinked rapidly as his speed increased and the stars became blurred, turning into lines of light and leaving impressions of their brightness on his retinas. It became too much to follow without getting hideously nauseous, so he closed his eyes, letting himself go with the fall.

After a few moments, he opened his eyes, just to check, and found that he was slowing down. It seemed that he had been slowing down for a couple of minutes, as the pace his body had been taking in this flight had lessened considerably and was still doing so. The stars were less stomach-turning to watch, so he kept his eyes open, shifting his gaze around for anything specific that might tell him why his descent was coming to a close. He happened to flick his gaze toward his feet and finally saw what was obstructing the path of his fall. In his vision, growing ever larger the closer he got to it, was a—planet? Asteroid? It looked like a lot of smaller rocks that had broken away from the larger body and were still traveling with the larger body.

The gap between he and it grew even smaller, and he saw that there was something else there, something much, much smaller than the first mass that Vincent had noticed. Nearer, nearer, until he realized that it was the form of someone familiar. Someone who was familiarly horrible. It figured that he would see him here at some point, taking into account the fact that _his_ spirit was not one that would take being killed lightly. Killed _twice_, no less. And the first time, Vincent had been one of the ones to help destroy him.

Vincent had the brief thought that he was in deep shit.

His decent had slowed so that he landed neatly, gracefully, ten feet away from what he assumed to be the everlasting soul of Sephiroth—or at least the illusion of it. His feet did not make a sound as they were planted firmly in the hard, crumbling terrain underneath.

The young man's face was as flawless and unlined as ever, as perfect in death as it had been in life—feral, lethal, beautiful. His eyes were the same startling cat-green, luminescent against the black velvet background of space. His pupils were slitted, narrow, giving ever more the impression of a cat as he stared unerringly at Vincent. The tiniest of smirks hovered around his pale mouth. Vincent found it slightly maddening. It had _always_ been slightly maddening. His pure silver hair fell—no, _cascaded_—down his back in silken, swaying curtains—despite the very obvious fact that there was no wind to speak of. Unfurled from his right shoulder was the very obvious black wing, its feathers gleaming dully in the light from the stars. Sephiroth lifted one imperious eyebrow at Vincent. Vincent just stared back, waiting.

"Vincent…Valentine? Is that the name of one of the insignificant fools who dared to challenge the mighty Sephiroth?" Vincent was silent. "I see that you choose to hold your tongue. Very well then, Vincent Valentine." His smirk stretched a bit. "Do you have any regrets about the choice you made?"

Vincent was slightly confused. "I would think, Sephiroth, that _you_ are the one who should have regrets."

Sephiroth smiled.

"Why would I have regrets when I have clearly accomplished the very thing I set out to do?"

Vincent was now _very_ confused. "You didn't accomplish anything. AVALANCHE defeated you. You're _dead_. Cloud finished you with Omni-slash."

With a wide sweep of his arms, Sephiroth gestured to the area around them, the humongous chunk of debris they were standing on. "_This_, Vincent Valentine, is what remains of the place you once called home."

Vincent stared at him, nonplussed momentarily. Then, he looked around at the wasted, barren landscape, almost uncomprehending at what his eyes were taking in and what this phantom was telling him. What _was_ this madness? They had killed Sephiroth—_twice!_ Once before Meteor fell from the skies and a second time when his remnants had surfaced to collect the last of the Jenova cells from the Northern Crater.

"You were defeated," Vincent said levelly, enunciating each word slowly and carefully. "I know this for a fact because I was _there_. I _helped_." He wasn't sure if reminding Sephiroth of that was such a great idea, considering it was just he and the madman there, him with no materia and definitely not a match for Sephiroth while by himself.

"You are confused, Vincent Valentine. I understand that in death, one's thoughts often become warped."

"I cannot be dead and standing here with you if you are alive."

"On the contrary, I have achieved my goal, and I have become the ultimate in Godhood, traveling the universe with your former planet as my vessel, as my mother did long before me. As a God, I can do what I like, when I like."

"You are no God."

Sephiroth smiled easily once more. Vincent was sickened. "Why do you refuse to believe me when all the evidence is laid before you as clearly as possible?"

"My memories say otherwise."

"Very well then. I shall have to show you."

- - - - - - - - - -

_Sephiroth fell from the sky like a lightning bolt, straight down the column of light that illuminated the flower girl's prayer position. He swept Masamune down in one graceful arc, plunging his blade smoothly into her back with relish. He watched with a hungry smile as her last breath left her with one short, bubbling gasp. She slumped forward and his eyes trailed the length of the wicked blade as the blood ran down the metal in rivulets and dripped to the floor, pooling beneath her limp body. Sephiroth gave a sharp tug and his sword was free from her flesh, flinging ruby droplets in every direction. _

_With an almost inarticulate cry of the girl's name, Cloud dropped his weapon—foolish—and lunged forward to her side, falling to his knees and lifting her up to cradle her in his arms. His eyes were bright and wet as he stared down at her._

_Sephiroth looked down at him coldly. "Do not worry. Soon the girl will become part of the Planet's energy. All that is left is to go North. The 'Promised Land' waits for me over the snowy fields. There I will become a new being by uniting with the planet. As will this girl…"_

_Cloud's eyes snapped up to him, crackling with anger. "…shut up!" he snapped, his voice low and gravelly with loathing. "The cycle of nature and your stupid plan don't mean a _thing_. Aeris is _gone_. Aeris will no longer talk, no longer laugh, cry…" He was choking now, his words coming in great, hiccupping sobs. "…or get angry. What about _us_? What are _we_ supposed to do? What about _MY_ pain? My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!"_

_Sephiroth chuckled, a sneer gracing his flawless, porcelain features. "What are you saying? Are you trying to tell me,"—his voice became mocking—," that you have feelings too?"_

_"Of course! Who do you think I am?"_

_This time, Sephiroth let out a few real barks of laughter. "Don't try to act as if you were sad. Don't even try to act angry, either. Because, Cloud, you are…"_

_Sephiroth chose to leave the rest to Jenova-LIFE. He didn't have time to deal with this nonsense. There were other things that needed tending to. _

_"Because, Cloud, you are a puppet…"_

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent stood in stone-silence. "What is your _point?_ This happened long ago. I know this for a fact just as I know your defeat as a fact."

Sephiroth's poisonous smile was unnerving. "That was only the beginning."

- - - - - - - - - -

_The scene was hectic. A boomerang-shuriken spun through the air, its deadly points gleaming. Bullets from two different sources pierced the flesh of their combined target, one stream spraying erratically, and one sequence aimed and fired calculatedly. The gleaming pinpoint of a long, sharp hairpin—that looked as though it should never be used for _anyone's_ hair—found its mark, sinking in, and then causing even more damage as it was quickly ripped away. Fists flew at a lightning pace, almost invisible as they struck, one after the other, followed up by the occasional kick from a well-planted foot. Fire and Lightning magic sizzled through the air, heating the atmosphere, shocking and burning the target with frightening accuracy. The triangular point of a vicious-looking spearhead plunged straight into the flesh of the creature, wrenching this way and that way, tearing into the muscles and the bone. A humongous blade sliced through the enemy with motions that were akin to a knife through butter._

_Everything suddenly stopped, and the disgusting form of Bizarro Sephiroth stopped functioning, its bulbous purple limbs ceasing in their incessant twitching movements. The group watched with bated breath, trying to ascertain any sign of life. After determining that the beast was indeed dead, they heaved a sigh of relief. It had not been an easy fight. _

_They had relaxed too soon. The body of their defeated foe vanished, blinking out of existence abruptly. So abruptly, actually, that several of them had to blink a couple of times before the event completely processed._

_In its place appeared the familiar form of the man they had been goose-hunting around the globe for some time. He smirked at them, his single wing unfurling from its place at his back and extending to its full length magnificently. It hung there, suspended, as he stared down the bridge of his nose at all of them. He held out his left hand, and in it appeared the cruel blade that he called his own. Masamune. His green eyes burned with an all-consuming fire._

_He was Sephiroth._

_In a flash that no human eye could follow, he appeared in front of their blonde leader, and shoved the blade into an upward hooked motion, below Cloud's defenses. The ex-SOLDIER was caught off guard and his body convulsed, shuddering with great waves of pain at the blade that went through his gut and protruded outward from his upper back. His mako-blue eyes locked with Sephiroth's venomous emerald ones, and his body gave another heave, his hands loosening and his blade falling from his grip. Sephiroth stared him straight in the face and slowly, sickeningly…_

_…he smiled._

_Cloud's knees gave out then and he slid down the blade just a bit, his head slumping forward and his eyes falling shut. He was not dead, just unconscious. The wound itself hadn't destroyed him, but the acid pouring from his perforated stomach would dissolve his insides to end in what would be an agonizingly slow death._

_Sephiroth pulled his arm back, dislodging his sword and turning to the others of the group, who were transfixed, mesmerized by the sight of their once invincible leader, now lying on the ground, crumpled and dying. What was the body without a head? _

_Sephiroth phased out of sight again, reappearing in front of Barret. With a swift diagonal motion, his thick, bear-like body had been cut wide open, almost in half. He coughed, spewing blood and saliva, and fell forward, scarlet fluid leaking from the wound and filling the area around his body in a grotesque puddle. "Mar…lene…" he gasped out, blood leaking from his lips to add to the amount gathered around his body._

_This sight, in of itself, was enough to set the others into motion. They scrambled, and bullets sang through the air from the long barrel of a shotgun: Death Penalty. Vincent's aim was true, but, unfortunately, the power of his weapon fell short. With merely a few flicks of his wrist, Sephiroth had deflected the bullets and they ricocheted off, useless, with sounds like a human cry._

_A lethal boomerang-shuriken whizzed forward, thrown by Yuffie with all the strength she could muster. Sephiroth shifted his body slightly to the left and it sailed past. Yuffie tried not to let her face indicate that it was coming back around, as implied by the term "boomerang," but Sephiroth merely stepped slightly to the right this time and it came straight back, unimpeded, into Yuffie's trained hands._

_Spells from several different sources sped to their mark, but Sephiroth was left unscathed. Tornado, Comet, Ultima, Fire3, Bolt3, Ice3. Sephiroth stood and took the attacks, remaining completely unscathed. A hand with an accessory bangle was lifted to reveal the slot that held the ruby-red gleam of Knights of the Round. They appeared out of nowhere, on horses, with lances and swords, slashing and hacking and swinging. When they vanished, Sephiroth was revealed, and his wounds were knitting quickly, too quickly for any natural person. _

_No one with a close-range weapon was stupid enough to try to move in for an attack, so they continued to run. There was nothing else to do. Two of the party were down—for good. They needed to regroup, and they needed to get away to regroup. _

_Too late, too slow._

_Masamune found its mark vertically down the middle of the electronic Cait Sith, slicing it neatly in half, and continuing on to decimate its mount, the oversized mog. The mog raised its gigantic fists to try and ward away the onslaught of Masamune, but it was as if no fight had been attempted in return at all. Three down._

_With a strangled shout, Tifa went down, one arm cut cleanly off and hole in her lung. She gurgled helplessly as the air deflated from the now useless organ and she flopped like a fish, staining her crisp white tank top with her own blood. Her wine-colored eyes were sightless and glazed from the extreme pain. Her chest heaved with the last bit of oxygen in her body._

_A furious shriek turned the attention to Yuffie, whose eyes were ablaze with grief and hatred. She charged the madman, thrusting her Conformer into the air, following its path with a triumphant gaze as it rushed across air currents toward its target. Vincent took that opportunity to fire off two more shots. Sephiroth deflected the bullets and swung Masamune at the Conformer, all in one smooth movement. The Conformer rebounded and came back at the ninja at an utterly wrong angle. It hit her straight in the face, and she was knocked sharply backward, falling flat on her back, with her own weapon standing straight up, its deadly points stuck where they had initially struck._

_Vincent reloaded lighting-fast and fired again, even knowing they wouldn't win. They _couldn't_ win. But still, he had to fight. He had to go down fighting._

_Red XIII made for a flying leap at Sephiroth from behind, just as Cid did the same from the front, brandishing the Venus Gospel. Vincent fired several rounds again. It didn't matter. Step back, bullets dodged. Swipe, Cid's head was no longer connected to his neck. Tilt the blade backward, Nanaki had been impaled. Jerk of the hilt, the feline-canine hybrid's limp form flew off, yards and yards away. Vincent watched, reloading all the while, and had just raised his gun to fire, when he saw a brief flash of silver, and the barrel fell off, cleanly disconnected from the rest of the gun. Vincent had one brief second to see Sephiroth bring the blade down toward his head before he was split wide open, fluids leaking out all over the ground, spreading from what was left of his skull._

_He didn't move again._

_And when Meteor fell from the sky, tearing the planet to shreds, Holy was almost useless._

_And when the Lifestream flooded to the gaping wound in the planet's surface, no one was there to stop Sephiroth from absorbing every last drop of the planet's main power source and becoming a God himself._

- - - - - - - - - -

It took Vincent a moment to break away from the haze that clutched his brain after seeing those events played out that way, so baldly. Vincent had seen many things in his lifetime, and he had seen many people die in similar way, but he had never thought he would have to sit through the completely horrifying images of the only people he had ever considered friends being slaughtered. That's what that had been: a complete and total slaughter. It was like they hadn't even _attempted_ to fend him off, everything they did was so useless! He blinked, bringing his eyes back into focus and fixing them on Sephiroth, rearranging his features to be impassive once more.

"Do you wish to eat your words now, Vincent Valentine?" Sephiroth said, that sly smile playing at his lips.

"I will not take back what I said. You were defeated. We beat you twice. You. Are. Dead. Holy stopped Meteor's progress, even though it was not without extensive damage done to Midgar."

"Are you so sure, Vincent Valentine? Would you like me to show you more? Would you like me to let you hear the sound of the planet's last dying cries? Would you like me to let you hear the screams of the humans as they were consumed by the fire of the Calamity From the Skies? Would this erase your doubt of what you have seen?"

Vincent bared his teeth. He had lost his patience. "I do _not_ have time for this. Free me from this ridiculous illusion."

"Illusion? This is no illusion that you see before you, Vincent Valentine. Why can you not accept reality?"

Vincent spoke slowly, as if to someone mentally impaired. "_This. Is. Not. Reality. You. Are Dead._ Now let me _leave_."

Sephiroth's expression grew slightly dark. "I tire of this. I will not continue to reason with you, as it is a waste of my time. I will just dispose of you now."

Vincent's eyes glittered. "Fine."

"You have no protests to this?"

He met Sephiroth's gaze unwaveringly. "None."

Sephiroth smirked slightly. "The question is, how do I kill you?"

"Do what you like, so long as I am out of here. I have better things to do than argue with a dead megalomaniac for all of eternity." He spat, "You are not worth my time."

"Perhaps a black hole, so that your body may be painfully rent, limb from limb. Perhaps I release the stasis holding you alive in this vacuum, leaving your bodily fluids to violently depressurize and erupt from every pore in your body. Perhaps I strand you on the nearest arctic planet, to freeze slowly," Sephiroth mused.

"You may hurl me into the hottest star in the universe, for all that I care. Just make your decision and have done with it."

"My, my, you _are_ determined. What would motivate someone in such a way?"

"That is none of your concern. _Make your decision_."

"The thought of death for your cause doesn't faze you in even the tiniest way?" Sephiroth was ponderous.

"No."

"You do not fear it? You would have no regrets?"

"None at all. What is your point? What are you getting at, Sephiroth?" Vincent was impatient and annoyed.

"What I'm getting at, Vincent Valentine, is the heart of the matter. What I'm getting at, is determination." He gazed at Vincent with a mockingly amused expression. "I see it clearly now." He waved a hand, and Vincent found himself rising into the vacuum, his feet coming off of the remains of the planet. "You pass."

With another wave of his hand, Sephiroth sent Vincent spinning off into space, faster and faster and faster, until the blinding light of a blue star filled his view. He could see no longer, and his path did not slow, but as he was flung straight into the surface of what he was sure was the hottest star in the universe, he felt nothing.

- - - - - - - - - -

_Vincent Valentine had no experience with such things as…party games. The pause was actually a tangible shudder in the psyche of the man in question. This was another escapade he had been dragged into by none other than Yuffie Kisaragi herself. It was her twentieth birthday, and therefore, she was having what she loudly proclaimed a "shindig." And there he was._

_Currently, they were playing something called Jenga._

_From what Vincent could discern, the object of the game was to select an oblong block from a tower of the things and pull it out carefully, so as not to upset the tower. When one did upset the tower, the first one to yell "Jenga!" would win the game. Vincent had no idea as to what "Jenga" meant, or as to whether or not this game had any type of point at all, but Yuffie was annoyingly persistent, so he was playing, albeit uncooperatively._

_They were holding Yuffie's party in Tifa's bar in Edge. Vincent glanced around the room idly, his red eyes searching for something to focus on other than the generic game of blocks. Picture hanging on the wall; rag on the table; chair out of place; patch on the leather of the bar stool; cake under a cover on the countertop. Failing to find something more interesting, he focused his attention on the game to see that Tifa, to his right, was picking a block out. _

_The tower teetered, swaying left and right, and then, just as it started to fall, Vincent opened his mouth and said calmly, "Jen—" but was immediately drowned out by Cid leaping out of his chair and bellowing "JENGA!" at a volume that should not have been possible for someone who smoked quite as much as him._

_No one had noticed that he had even attempted to win the game. _

_Vincent Valentine was not a person who liked to lose. Daring people who had ever gotten into gambling card games with him usually found themselves at a loss of money, their purses down to the smallest cobwebs by the time it was all over. However, there were the select few times in which Vincent had a stroke of ill luck and actually lost. Even _more_ daring people had seen fit to accuse Vincent of being a sore loser, as he had usually demanded rematch after rematch. Those people, needless to say, were not happy when they were introduced to the World of Hurt._

_Vincent was determined to win this time. As the game was restarted, he waited patiently for the people around the circle to take their respective turns. At one point, Barret's large brown hands almost knocked the tower over once more, but the column of wooden blocks steadied and lay still. Most around the circle breathed a sigh of relief. The game continued, until, finally it reached Vincent._

_Vincent lifted his human hand gracefully, slowly, reaching out to the tower, his sights set on it intently. Then, suddenly, startling almost the whole table, he lashed out, thrusting his hand forward and sending the whole thing awry. Blocks went flying everywhere, bonking a couple of people on various body parts. A few others cried out in protest, shielding themselves and shouting things like "what the HELL?" and "ouch!"_

_Once the commotion settled down, everyone looked toward Vincent, who was seated calmly in his chair, as before, staring at them all neutrally. A few eyebrows were raised. He opened his mouth to speak, and they all leaned forward imperceptibly, curious at his behavior._

_"Jenga."_

_They gaped at him in silence for a few moments, then Yuffie let out a raucous whoop and clapped momentarily for Vincent, a grin creeping across her face and taking up residence there, from one ear to the next. After she was done laughing heartily at him, she cleared her throat._

_"Well, I don't think that could ever be beat, so we're gonna play…somethin' else."_

_ A delighted smile lit her features, and Vincent was not the only one at the party that had a sense of foreboding overtake him._

_Vincent tried valiantly to bend his knee into a more comfortable position, but it was nearly impossible to do so without slipping completely off the mat. His elbow was on green, his knees were on red and yellow, and his hand was on red as well. Yuffie was stretched out underneath him in an attempt to reach all her required colors, and he could just barely see the beads of sweat breaking out on her upper lip. Cloud was somewhere near him as well, for he could feel spiky blonde hair jabbing him in the soft part of his upper arm. Nanaki, surprisingly, was having no trouble at all. He just had to make sure his red hot tail was kept safely out of range._

_Cait Sith flicked the tiny black spinner again, sending it whirling. It was Vincent's turn once more. He cackled gleefully. "Hey, Vince, left tongue, chartreuse!"_

_He tried to direct a glare in the cat's direction, but failed entirely, as he couldn't crane his neck at so awkward an angle. "Just kiddin'! Left knee yellow!" Vincent, after a bit of difficulty, managed to shove his knee in that position, but in the process, upset the careful tangle of limbs combined on the mat. The whole group collapsed in a heap, grumbling and complaining._

_"Okay," Yuffie heaved out, pushing her hair out of her face, after dislodging her arm from under Cloud's shin. "I think it's time we stop playing Twister and try something else."_

"_All righty, Tifa." Yuffie addressed the voluptuous martial artist rather suddenly, directing her attention like a focused laser. The look in her eyes boded well for no one, and especially not Tifa herself._

_"…truth or dare?"_

_Tifa contemplated this for a few moments, staring at some point beyond them and obviously thinking deeply. She worried at her lip for a few moments before answering Yuffie unwaveringly. "Truth."_

_"Bah," Yuffie scoffed. "You picked the chickens' choice. Oh, well, you wanted it so here ya go." Yuffie thought for a split second, until her eyes gleamed unnaturally. "Who was your last wet dream about?"_

_Tifa's mouth dropped open unattractively and she stared at Yuffie in uncompromised horror. "I…uh…that is to say…" She stammered, tripping over her own tongue. Blushing, she offered up an ultimatum, "I'll just take dare."_

_Yuffie's face took on a positively delighted look. It was a little bit scary. "Oh, no, that's _not_ how it works. You _have_ to tell the truth if you pick truth. There's no going back. The same with the dares. So, go on, answer the question, Teef. Who's the lucky guy, eh? Eh?"_

_Tifa's face reddened further and she muttered something under her breath, looking down at her hands in her lap. _

_"What was that, Teef? Afraid I didn't hear you all that well."_

_Tifa mumbled unintelligibly again, her gaze flickering briefly to Yuffie, delivering a vicious, blush-tainted glare at the not-so-young-ninja. "I said it was…Cloud, okay? It was Cloud."_

_Cid snorted into his drink, sloshing liquid over the sides of his cup. Barret steadfastly looked away, trying to seem nonchalant. Cait Sith just cackled maniacally. Red XIII looked knowing. Cloud was flushed a bright tomato-red and was staring at Tifa. His mouth was so far open, if he left it like that long enough, he would've drawn flies. Yuffie let out a very quiet, very vehement, "_I knew it_." Vincent observed all this with quiet curiosity, watching from his seat at the table in silence. _

_After a few moments of this, Yuffie broke the tension again. "Well…uh, Tifa, since it was just your turn, you get to ask someone a truth or dare now."_

_She glared at Yuffie, obviously more than a little peeved, with a look that said, "Your time is coming." _

_Instead of directing her assault at Yuffie, however, as most people predicted she was going to do, she went for Cait Sith. Reeve was operating him through him at that moment, almost as if he were there in person._

_The questions continued to cycle, and no one seemed all that interested in Vincent. He guessed it was because it looked as though if someone approached him with a ridiculous "truth or dare" line, he'd rip out his or her throat. With his _teeth

_Finally, the game cycled back around to Tifa, and this time, she chose Yuffie, for one reason or another. This time around, Yuffie chose a good, old-fashioned—_

_"Dare."_

_A very odd smirk curled at the corners of Tifa's mouth. Wickedly, she proclaimed, "Yuffie, I dare you to kiss Vincent."_

_Yuffie's face went still as stone as she looked calmly at Tifa. Stiffly, she replied, "Okay." Vincent sat stock-still as Yuffie walked around the table, bent at the waist and placed a peck on his cheek, soft and quick, before sitting back down at her chair. Her face still unnaturally unyielding, she turned to Red XIII. "Truth or dare, Red?"_

_She stayed that way for the rest of the game; neutral, uncharacteristically so. Vincent had no idea if it was the idea of kissing him anywhere that seemed so disgusting that it had put her in a horrible mood entirely, or if it was something else bothering her. He didn't dwell on it long._

_What he did dwell on was the smooth feel of her lips on his cheek, and the scent of her hair as she had come so close to him. As she had leaned forward, some of the sooty strands of it had brushed his cheek, tickling him. It was not a wholly disliked feeling._

_Which was what bothered him._


	8. Chapter 8

"_Well, what's wrong with her?" Tifa asked the doctor impatiently, trying to see past him into the room, peering over his shoulder to get a glimpse of their friend. _

_The doctor looked solemn, but something flickered across his features momentarily, and Vincent tried in vain to catch what it might be. It was too fast even for him._

_"Miss Lockhart, I suggest you and your friends go home, and we will call you in the morning. Right now, tests are being run on some of the abnormalities found in Miss Kisaragi's blood, and we don't know anything for sure yet."_

_"What do you mean, 'don't know anything for sure'? That means you have suspicions, and that means that there is something going on and as Yuffie's best friend, I _demand_ to know!"_

_"I'm sorry, Miss Lockhart, but I cannot offer you anything at this time."_

_Tifa looked angry enough that it seemed like she might clock him right then and there, but she reined in her temper with noticeable strain, breathing deeply, nostrils flaring and mouth pinched. Her wine-colored eyes flashed._

_"Fine. But, so help me," her expression darkened, if possible, "if I am not notified the minute results come in, I will hunt all of you down."_

_With that, she turned on her heel and stormed out, dragging a majority of palpable tension in her wake. The remaining members of what used to be AVALANCHE shot each other looks mixed with apprehension, surprise, and unsettlement._

_- - - - - - - - - -_

_Vincent awoke on his reed mat on the floor, shifting under the thin blanket, barely feeling the summer air coming through the cracked windows. He listened above the noise of the crickets buzzing merrily in the night air, hearing the creak of floorboards and seeing a shadow fall across his room outside the sliding screen door. _

_He got up soundlessly, rising to his feet and stood out of the way of the moonlight, so as not to cast a shadow, himself. He laid a hand on his gun and placed a hand on the screen, and in one swift move, knocked it open, pointing the gun to the intruder in the hallway. He blinked softly at the startled countenance of Empress Yuffie Kisaragi._

_She took one look at him and burst into tears, throwing herself into his body and pushing her face into the dark fabric of his shirt. He could feel how hard she was crying because the sobs were making his body shake in tandem with hers. These were dry, heaving, heartbroken noises, and Vincent was lost as to what to do. Hesitantly, he placed a hand in her hair, stroking with small movements. She just rocked, choking on her own cries._

_After more than fifteen minutes of that exhaustive crying, she seemed to calm a little bit, and finally looked up at him, her face streaked and blotchy. Bright and wet still, the creeping, spindly fingers of blood vessels reddened the normally white parts of her eyes. She gave a great sniff, and buried her face back into the fabric of his shirt, still and quiet this time._

_After a few more minutes of that, she chose to break the silence of her own accord. "Vinnie," she rasped, her voice hoarse._

_"Yes, Yuffie?"_

_"They told me I'm dying."_

_He stared down at the top of her dark head, confused. "You are not going to die, Yuffie."_

_"Actually," she contradicted, letting out a rough, harsh laugh, "according to them, I'm already dead."_

_- - - - - - - - - -_

He was burning. He was on fire. Pictures were being painted with the pain on his every nerve, seared into his flesh like an artist with a complex. It was so painful, he was numb, and he was so numb that it was painful. It was an endless paradox of bliss, for despite it all, he was reveling in it, savoring this moment of clarity, this moment of self that it brought him, relishing in the way it cleared his head and relieved him of all the fears and doubts that had been thrown at him, one after the other.

Eventually, it ended, and against all odds, this place had preserved him. He was not ash. He had not disintegrated. He was still alive, and he was still had a task to perform.

He was still Vincent Valentine, and that was all that mattered when it came down to it.

The light around him dissipated, ceased to blind him. The flames cooled, finished licking at him like starved dogs. He blinked, and a hazy image swam before his vision. He blinked again and this time it came into focus more. As it did, Vincent suddenly realized that he was lying on his back, face up, on something warm and soft. It was dim in the room, and blurred faces pressed in on each side of him, whispering excitedly.

Everything took a minute to clear, before he could make out the forms of his fellow ex-AVALANCHE members. They were crowding him, and it made the space in the area feel very small and stuffy.

"Could you please," he ventured, "give me a little space?"

They hastily retreated, giving him air and the proper room to sit up and glance at his surroundings. They were in Tifa's spare bedroom off of her bar in Edge. A second sweeping glance of the room caused his eye to stop on a cot in the corner. He lifted an eyebrow and turned to them, garnet eyes shimmering in the gloom.

"Vincent," Tifa said to him softly. "You did it, Vincent. You brought Yuffie back."

His eyes widened, and it seemed to come to him in flashes. The challenges, the pain, the horror, finding her, touching her hand, blacking out, coming to in this room.

"What…happened?" he asked tentatively.

They all started talking at once, gesturing wildly with wide eyes and overly excited tones that all seemed much too loud for him. Cloud saw that Vincent was clenching his eyes shut and placed a hand on Tifa's arm. She immediately started shushing everyone, trying to get them calm.

"Okay, if you guys don't mind, I'll tell Vincent the story, then you can add whatever you need to, in an orderly fashion, okay?" Tifa directed, taking charge, as she did so well. The motley crew nodded in agreement, acquiescing in a very uncharacteristic fashion, if history said anything.

"Okay, so, Reeve filled us in on how you had gone to the Lost City after you left. We were worried something horrible could happen so we went there as soon as we heard. When we got to the lake where Aeris was laid to rest, we looked and looked for you, but you weren't anywhere, so we figured you _had_ to be at the bottom still. We didn't really know what to do and everyone was sort of panicking until Reeve showed up in his chopper."

Vincent's eyes flickered to Reeve momentarily, then back to Tifa, listening raptly as she recounted the tale of how he had been discovered with the rescued Yuffie at hand.

"Originally, he had hung back because Rufus had detained him on work for rebuilding Midgar, but then he realized that we'd need underwater materia, which he had an ample supply of at Neo-Shinra's main supply buildings. So he nabbed a chopper and came to meet us before we tried anything too desperate.

"With the help of the underwater materia, we dove in and swam to the bottom, expecting to find your body drifting around there. But we went all _through_ that lake and didn't find _anything_. So finally, we all came back up, and went to shore, and _there you were_, just lying on the ground, with Yuffie laid out next to you. It was _crazy_. So we brought you back here, to my bar. You've been asleep for eight hours."

"There ya were," Cid put in, "jus' lyin' there like you was dead, with the brat right next to ya."

"You were laid out as though for a viewing," Red XIII said quietly.

Vincent considered their words, and suddenly, an immense relief washed over him, like a wave breaking on a shore. He was…

He was home.

He sat up, the tangled strands of his hair clumping together the way they always did when he got it wet and then slept on it. He put his feet on the floor, noticing that someone had removed his cloak and his heavy boots and most of his belts, leaving just one to hold his pants up. He made his unsteady way toward the bed with Yuffie in it, and he knelt beside it on the floor, resting his head against the side of it.

Yuffie stirred momentarily, her eyelids fluttering and twitching, She woke slowly, staring groggily at him, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

"Yuffie," he said softly.

She opened her eyes completely, then they widened to more than their normal size and her breathing quickened, coming so fast that her voice came through in small, frightened noises. He leaned back a little, startled at her reaction.

She suddenly scrambled away from him, squeezing herself into as small a ball as she could get, shaking and still making those small noises. Tifa, Barret, Cid, Cloud, Reeve, and Red rushed over as a group, concern etched in their faces.

"Hey, kid, what is it? What the hell's wrong with you?" Barret said gruffly, attempting to break through Yuffie's thick wall of panic.

"Yuffie? Yuffie! What's happening to her?"

Tifa climbed onto the bad and grabbed Yuffie by her arms, forcefully prying them off of her body and bringing her out of her protective position. "Yuffie! Yuffie, look at me!"

Yuffie stared up at Tifa with cornered, wild eyes. She babbled something out, flicking her gaze around the room rapidly.

"What? Yuffie, what did you just say? Yuffie, I need you to calm down and repeat what you just said," Tifa soothed, trying to placate the young woman.

"G-get," she gasped between choked noises, "him _away from me_!" She was crying now, hysterical and unrestrained.

"Get _who_ away from you? _Who_, Yuffie?"

"Don't let him hurt me!" she shrieked, pointing straight at Vincent and pinning him with the most fearful look he had ever seen on the ninja's face.

"Vincent? Don't let Vincent hurt you? Yuffie, what are you talking about? Vincent saved you. He brought you back to us, Yuff. He brought you back! Don't you remember?"

"No, _NO_!" she screamed, frantic, struggling against Tifa's hold. "Monster! _A monster did it_!"

"Monster? Yuffie, you have to _calm down_."

"Don't let the monster hurt me, _please_, Tifa! _Please, don't let it HURT ME_!"

All eyes were trained on Vincent, fierce and suspicious. He was staring in abject horror at the screaming girl, bewildered and struck to the core.

What had happened? Had he harmed Yuffie? Suddenly, a terrible thought hit him like a thunderclap.

Had _Chaos_ harmed Yuffie?

Vincent lurched unsteadily to his feet, tottering. He backed up slowly, overcome with the notion that maybe something had happened to her, involving him and the demons on which he kept such and iron hold. He was breathing through his gritted teeth, backed against the opposite wall, with Yuffie still wailing, her luminous gray eyes fixated on him.

Accompanying the frantic ninja's steel gray eyes were the intimidating and protective stares of the rest of her friends and comrades. They pinned him accusingly to the wall he was leaning against, focused like laser beams. They clearly said _'What did you do?'_

"I…" He stumbled over his own tongue, desperate with the fear that he might have lost control and caused his friend to act in this way. "I don't know…what happened…"

A searing heat shot through him, focusing on the region between his shoulder blades, his fingertips, the tips of his toes, and jaw, which began to feel as though it were stretching. He was transforming. _No_! He had to control it. He had to get himself back together and push the wave of roiling fury and hatred back from his psyche.

He managed to stifle it under a blanket of total non-emotion. Too late, his friends had seen his eyes starting to flicker toward the color yellow, a stark contrast to their normal ruby hue. Too late, his friends had seen his skin start to toughen, darken. Too late, his friends had heard the ripping fabric of wings tearing out, seen his extending fingernails, witnessed his hair standing on edge, becoming even more untamed.

Too late, he was incriminated.

Too late, his friends were not so anymore.

The room was stiflingly quiet, and Vincent could hear nothing but the sound of his own ragged breathing. Barret was the one who finally broke the silence, brashly and effectively.

"What the fuck did you do, Valentine?"

Vincent could only shake his head back and forth mutely, paralyzed.

"I'm gonna ask ya this again, Valentine. What…the fuck…did you _do_?" he forced out, as if speaking to an invalid.

"I," Vincent whispered, "didn't do anything. I don't remember doing anything at all. I did not harm her. At least…"

"'At least'?" Nanaki prompted.

"…not willingly."

Barret took four huge steps forward and crossed the room completely. Vincent, sensing the rage pouring off of the large man, attempted to duck out of the way, but after his near-morph into Chaos and the willpower and strength it took to push something of that nature back, his reflexes were sluggish. Barret fisted his massive hands in the fabric at the front of Vincent's shirt, pulling him clear off the ground and into the air, leaving his sock-swathed feet to dangle and kick at empty space helplessly.

"Barret, calm down!" Tifa shouted over the din. Now two people were losing their cool, adding to the noise of Yuffie's wails. It was driving Vincent crazy, sending him over the edge once more. He could feel his handle slipping.

"Barret," he spat from his locked jaw. He could feel his canines extending unnaturally. "Barret, you _need_ to _put me down_."

Barret shook him slightly, fear and worry swimming in his dark-chocolate eyes. "Valentine, you hurt the brat and I wanna know what you did!"

"Barret, _let me go_ or we're _both_ going to regret it. If you don't let me go now, Chaos won't be pleased."

"Oh, I see. You gonna do ta me what you did ta Yuffie? You gonna rough me up, Valentine? That it? You gonna rough me up?" Barret shook him a little with each sentence.

White hot anger washed over him, making his limbs tingle uncomfortably. "Barret," he growled, his voice lowering to an unnaturally low timbre, even for him. "I…_DON'T_…want to…hurt you…" he panted, squeezing his hands so hard into fists that his lengthening fingernails sliced into the calloused flesh of his palms and drew warm red blood.

With a strangled, hissing cry of pain, leathery purple wings burst from the flesh and cloth of Vincent's back, from between his shoulder blades, slithering out across the wall and dripping blood to the floor in a gruesome transformation. Vincent's eyes were completely yellow at this point, his pupils narrowed to slits. His skin was beginning to shift, becoming rough under Barret's hands, warping hideously.

Startled, Barret dropped the gunslinger, backing away hastily. Vincent curled into a ball on the floor, those great, bat-like wings shivering and making quiet, airy noises. Several minutes passed and nothing happened, but then, Vincent arched his back and the wings shrank away into nothing, disappearing into the space between his shoulder blades, waiting to re-emerge when called upon by Chaos at a later date and time. It took seven to eight minutes for him to fully become himself again, and still, he lay on the floor and shook.

Yuffie had long ago quieted, simply staring at Vincent with eyes as wide as saucers, frightened but transfixed. Tifa still had her arms around the ninja, protective and motherly as always, completely enfolding the smaller woman with her tall, ample frame.

Vincent gathered his wits and knew he could no longer stay where he was. There was nothing left for him there. Despite the fact that he could remember nothing of what had so traumatized Yuffie, he knew that it had happened because he could not handle his own demons. It was time for him to leave.

He swallowed, trying to get some moisture into his dry, sticking throat. "Where is the rest of my clothing?" he inquired awkwardly.

Tifa spoke up. "Over there in the corner, on that chair."

She spoke the truth, for there were his belts, his cloak, and his boots, neatly placed on a chair, the cloak folded with the boots and the belts resting on top. After a moment, Vincent took a deep breath, fastened his tattered cape around his neck, buckled the belts precariously around his waist, and slipped into his gaudy bronze boots.

With one last look, he left the room, left the bar, and left the last bits of the only thing he had ever thought to call his life.

- - - - - - - - - -

"_What's wrong with her?" Tifa shouted, shaking the doctor by the collar. The doctor, surprisingly, looked unperturbed in the face of such a disturbance, merely staring Tifa calmly in the eye and clearing his throat imperiously._

_"Maybe, Miss Lockhart, you could put me down and we can all discuss this like _adults_."_

_Growling faintly, Tifa let the man go. A flicker of something like satisfaction ran over her face as she saw that the doctor had trouble catching his balance after being pulled bodily off of the floor with his feet dangling in the air and then being abruptly released._

_He cleared his throat once more and gestured at the chairs. A few of them took a seat, while some chose to remain standing. All of AVALANCHE was assembled, with the exception of Yuffie, Nanaki and Reeve. Yuffie, who had refused to tell anyone what was wrong with her, actually insisting that there couldn't be anything wrong with her and that she was perfectly healthy, even though she was bawling her eyes out as she said it, and Nanaki and Reeve, who had decided to stay with her to make sure she was completely safe. The tears had flowed unchecked since she had returned and flung herself at Vincent that night, offering him cryptic words and then not elaborating at all for the confused gunslinger._

_"Hasn't Miss Kisaragi informed you of what the diagnosis is then?" the medical man asked, lifting a brow._

_Cloud shook his head. "She tells us that there can't be anything the matter, but it's kinda obvious she's lying, since she's crying all over the sofa right now."_

_The doctor looked at him sharply. "Is there someone staying with her, to make sure she doesn't hurt herself in any way? She is going through a difficult time right now, and it's best if she's supervised, to be sure she doesn't do anything harmful to her person while she's in such an emotional state."_

_Cloud nodded in response, blue eyes troubled._

_"Good, although it sounds like she's clearly experiencing a case of heavy denial. Typical, in situations like hers."_

_"What the hell's wrong with her, doc?" It was Cid this time, his expression slightly frustrated as he chewed on the end of a cigarette, staying under the rules of the hospital not to actually light it in the building._

_"Am I correct in the understanding that you regularly get into battles and that Miss Kisaragi participates in these battles?"_

_They all nodded, making various noises of affirmation._

_"And it is also to my understanding that, lately, you have been personally assisting Miss Kisaragi in defending the throne of Wutai from rebel groups that are intent on overthrowing the Kisaragi reign?"_

_"Get to the damn point, doc," Cid interrupted._

_"When you brought Miss Kisaragi into my hospital with the severe injuries she had sustained, we took blood samples to make sure she was healthy and everything was working in the right order, since we had done transfusions. The tests came back with some bad news. Miss Kisaragi has contracted a rare blood disease usually only found in animals. It can be contracted by eating a carrier of this disease, or it can be transferred from open wounds. In this case, we believe that the disease was transferred from an opponent she faced whose weapon was not properly cleaned before use. Unfortunately, because it wounded Miss Kisaragi, it infected her blood."_

_They all looked slightly shocked. Vincent took the initiative. "Is it fatal?" He knew the answer already, but it had to be confirmed._

_"Extremely fatal."_

_Vincent blinked once. "Is there a cure?"_

_The doctor looked regretful. "I am afraid that there is no cure for this disease at the moment, since it is so rare."_

_"That's bullshit!" Tifa suddenly exclaimed. It was shocking to hear Tifa swear, such was it that she was usually so well-behaved and mannerly. "We brought her to you because you're the _best_, doc. We wouldn't have taken her across the ocean by airship in her state, all the way to Junon, if we hadn't known you could fix her up. So fix her up, dammit!"_

_"We are going to do everything we can for your friend, Miss Lockhart, I assure you. I am sure that a cure will be found with some research and experimentation." A steely glint flashed through the doctor's eyes. _

_Tifa's knuckles were white as she gripped the arms of her chair. "What do we do now?"_

_The doctor looked at her earnestly, something like sympathy gracing his features. "Now, Miss Lockhart, you do everything in your power to help Miss Kisaragi feel comfortable."_

- - - - - - - - - -

"Hello there, Mr. Black," called the mailman, giving Vincent a cheerful wave. Vincent nodded politely in return to Roy's usual morning greeting.

"Hope you have a nice day, sir!"

People in Gongaga were so friendly. Aside from the normal occurrence of small feuds and gossip that went along with a community of _any_ size, the town was a peaceful, courteous place to live. He had chosen well to stow away in the little village, nestled snugly amidst thick forests teeming with beasts. The villagers found his presence useful when dealing with larger creatures entering the town, and he was paid for his services.

Information, when reaching such places as the little community of Gongaga, was slow. They knew of AVALANCHE and Sephiroth's defeat at the hands of them, but as far as Vincent's physical appearance, there was very little to go on.

The people of Gongaga were anything but stupid, however. To survive for years where they were placed in the world, intelligence was a major requirement. No, the people of Gongaga had of course heard of the man with the golden claw and demon eyes, the one who had assisted in the destruction of Sephiroth and Meteor, whose name was Vincent Valentine.

The men and women of Gongaga also knew very well what skeletons in a closet were and what they looked like. It seemed to them that Raamon Black had one in his closet called Vincent Valentine. Those who came to secluded Gongaga came for a reason, and Gongagans knew what it was like to want to be left alone. So, in regards to Vincent, they did just that.

For four months now, Vincent had been living as a resident of Gongaga under the alias of Raamon Black. He had gotten rid of his cell phone early on in his journey, realizing that Tifa would attempt to track him down by its signal, and that tech-junkie Reeve would help if she requested it of him. That was how Tifa was. She hadn't gotten the whole story, and Vincent knew for a fact that she always believed that everyone's side of the story deserved to be heard.

Chaos had remained disturbingly quiet for all four of those months, leaving Vincent with the foreboding feeling that something very _not good_ was going to happen at any moment.

Despite this, Vincent had to go on with everyday life, and, as his stomach was noisily alerting him, he was hungry. It was nearing lunchtime so he went into the kitchen in search of something to soothe his angry stomach, but he found almost nothing. He had spices, as well as some different condiments and spreads, but he didn't have anything that could be made into any sort of decent meal.

Vincent needed to go to the little shop, north of his cottage. He hated grocery shopping, which probably explained why his cupboards were so bare. His stomach snarled at him, displeased at his hesitation, and he conceded reluctantly to find something to satiate it.

The bell clanged on the shop door as he entered, alerting the usual cashier, Willemina, of his presence. She smiled genially, at him, the fine lines of middle age creasing the corners of her eyes and lips. Small wisps of graying blonde hair escaped her haphazard bun. They clung to her face in the muggy, exhausting heat of midsummer.

One thing Vincent had learned as a Turk living on his own was how to cook for himself. He had decided to do so one day after he got tired of eating from the same take-out place for two weeks. He went through the store quickly, picking out meat, bread, cheese, milk, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, and some other bits and pieces—seasonings, snacks, condiments. He brought his items to the check-out counter and placed his things down on the surface, waiting for Willemina to put the numbers into out-of-date excuse for a calculator. Once she gave him the price, he forked over some gil and waited for his change. He had paid her two-hundred gil, and the total price had been one-hundred seventy-three gil. She gave him seventeen bills back as change—ten short.

"Mrs. Bowfeud," he said in his usual formal tones.

She looked up from where she was sorting the gil. "Yes, Raamon?" Willemina Bowfeud called anyone younger than her by his or her first name. Little did she know how old Vincent really was.

"You have made a mistake in counting the amount of change. You owe me twenty-seven gil, but you only returned to me seventeen."

Willemina frowned slightly. "You gave me one-hundred-ninety gil, Raamon. You only get seventeen back."

Vincent shook his head. "No, ma'am. I gave you two-hundred gil. Twenty-seven is owed me."

"No, no, dear. I clearly remember it being one-hundred-ninety total. I gave you your money." She smiled. "It's easy to make such mistakes. Be on your way and enjoy your lunch, dear."

Normally, ten gil wouldn't matter that much, had Vincent lived anywhere other than Gongaga. Pay was _adequate_, not _good_. He remained at the desk, stubbornly refusing to be shorted. Mrs. Bowfeud looked up, noticing that she hadn't heard him leave yet. It was then that she became irritated.

"Mr. Black," she said, using his last name in her abrupt mood shift, "just take your money and go, and we'll both get on with our lives. Ten gil isn't such a huge affair, now is it, Raamon?"

It was then that Vincent began to suspect that the miscalculation had not been such an accident. Money was always short in Gongaga, and even those you thought were of high moral standards sometimes stooped to new lows.

And even though part of him understood Willemina's situation, the rest of him was swallowed by a swiftly mounting violence. A familiar tingling started in his jaw, between his shoulder blades, in the ends of his feet and hands, and on his skin. It was as if a giant, clawed hand had gripped him directly in the gut, clenching until he was broken in two.

He fought against the tide of hate, and he fought hard. It was maddening, and it was useless. Being pent up and tied down for four months in Vincent's psyche after the incident with AVALANCHE had just served to give the monster more tortured feelings to feed and grow on. Chaos's power was overwhelming, and finally, Vincent knew he could hold out no longer, and he gave over to the tide of black hatred that sent him spinning away under its power.

Just as he knew Chaos had won the battle, he felt a sharp, stinging pain in his right shoulder. That particular brand of pain was something he was rather familiar with, and he had been wounded in that place on his shoulder throughout his time as a Turk more than once.

He slipped back into the front of his mind as Chaos released him abruptly. He stumbled, throwing his left hand up immediately to clutch at the hole that had been torn through the skin and muscle. Standing behind the counter with Willemina was her husband, Jerome, his eye trained at Vincent down the smoking barrel of an ancient-looking shotgun.

Willemina had, with reason, become rather frightened of Vincent as he choked and spluttered in the middle of her store, and had, logically, called Jerome in to "handle" it. He had handled it, all right. He had just unknowingly saved his wife and possibly others from injury or death at the hands of a savage demon.

"Now, see here, Mr. Black," Jerome spat harshly. "I don't want _any_ trouble, so either take your purchases or don't, but whatever way you pick it, I'm askin' you to leave. Immediately," he added, pumping the shotgun so that a shell fell to the floor, plinking against the linoleum with a clear message.

Vincent didn't even bother picking up his scattered food items before making a hasty exit. He fled to his house, where he proceeded to pack away his belongings into one bag, which was pitiful, to say the least. Despite his speedy pack-job and his quick escape, however, he found that a buzzing crowd—a crowd for Gongaga, at least—awaiting him at the edge of the village. Blocking the exit. This could get ugly.

At the sight of him, the buzzing escalated to a dull roar.

This would _definitely_ get ugly.

Vincent stepped forward to see if maybe the crowd parted at all, but almost seemed to tighten visibly, the people moving closer to fill up the spaces. They stared with harsh, accusing eyes, whispering to each other angrily, tense and unbreakable.

He considered making a quick break to the tree line, not too far from where he was standing. That option was cancelled out by the simple truth that when he hastily exited Tifa's bar in Edge, he had left his few possessions behind to avoid the conflict. He regretted that decision now, for he knew that, undoubtedly, the materia he had left in his accessories were all in the hands of Yuffie Kisaragi.

Aside from the couple of materia he had taken in his weapon with him from the bar, he had some low level materia he had acquired from the local store and had been trying to master. That kind of fire would be nothing for the bigger monsters in the forests around Gongaga. No matter how great of a sharpshooter he was, an ambush of more than twelve frogs at a time would be the end of him.

Forcing his way through would also be a no-go. About one-fourth of the people in the crowd had weapons, and were hefting them threateningly. He didn't want to hurt people, and if worse came to worst, that would be his last avenue. So, Vincent decided to take the peaceful approach.

"I just want to leave. After I leave, you will never again have to see or hear from me. I just want to pass."

One of the men spoke up. "How do we know you do not plan to come back to raid our houses or hurt our townspeople?"

Vincent mulled this over for a moment, then answered candidly. "You don't. I have lived here peacefully among you for four full months, and I ask that you grant me one last kindness. Please, take me at my word and let me pass."

A small woman with a voice like a shrieking crow piped up. "Why should any one of us trust a _monster_?" The statement ignited the crowd, sending them into a frenzied roar.

Vincent knew well about mob mentality in his years of experience as one of the shadier employees for Shinra. One of his many jobs had been crowd control. When a large group of people were gathered in one area for one purpose, usually volatile, it didn't take much to turn the tide one way or the other, if you were part of that mob.

Being the target of the mob's emotions and extremes was not advantageous to this particular analysis, though.

They began to advance on him, clearly without peaceful intent. He backed up, his right hand twitching convulsively toward the Death Penalty holstered at his hip.

It got ugly.

He dodged out of the way as someone swung, of all things, a pitchfork at him. Talk about cliché. They rapidly closed him in on all sides, and when he tried to jump from the crowd and into the air, using his amazingly enhanced acrobatics, they were too quick. Someone caught his foot and dragged him back into the veritable sea of people. He floundered, flailing his golden claw and caught one man in the face. Ouch. That would surely scar. He fell to the ground under their feet with a thud and then felt a swift kick to his ribs. Another followed, and then another, until he was being beat on mercilessly.

Someone lifted something long, thin, and metallic—he recognized it momentarily as a crowbar—and then a blinding white flash and a distant-sounding _crack_ silenced his thoughts.

But only for a moment.


	9. Chapter 9

He burst into the change with a speed he had never remembered having before. Wings erupted from his back, shivering and dripping. They were curled, hiding their full, sixteen-foot span. Horn-like protrusions stretched from his scalp, forming a hard red crown. His skin darkened to a bluish-purple shade, setting the yellow in his irises off oddly. Deadly-sharp talons formed on his right hand, ready to kill if necessary.

He was Chaos.

With a guttural roar, he launched himself into the air, breaking away from the furious mob. He was angry, and the beast was loose, and the combination of the two added up to serve in a loss of any control he had over the demon whatsoever. This was unlike when Rosso the Crimson had torn the protomateria from his chest, breaking down the walls that reined the creature in. This was far worse. Chaos had _worked_ to escape his host's consciousness, and was not about to let go easily.

He swooped, arcing toward the ground at an amazing speed. His wings caught several people, knocking them into others or sending them to the dirt. His gauntlet and talons hooked others, ripping away their weapons and catching them in the throats to leave them choking on their own blood in gurgling heaps.

He hovered six feet above them, taunting with his very presence. He dipped lower in the air, watching as a few clamored to grab his leg and pull him back in, but he merely kicked his foot forward and broke a woman's nose with the blunt metal tip of his boot. She cried out, blood spurting from her nose like a broken fountain pen. She fell against another man, who glared at Chaos and threw a knife expertly. The demon dodged easily enough and retaliated by snatching that man, flying high, and dropping from a height of one hundred feet in the air, on a path directly to the earth below.

The other villagers started doing the smart thing—they got scared. And with mob mentality, if three people panicked, so did the rest, save a few who could keep their heads. Unfortunately, for those few, there weren't very many things as difficult to tame as hysterical fear.

Chaos, merely out of the ancient killing instinct that his being held, cleanly picked off a few more of the stragglers, decapitating, killing, and wounding them. They ran to houses, to trees, and anywhere else they could find that would be a hideaway from the frightening power of the flying predator.

- - - - - - - - - -

"_Vincent!" Tifa screamed, as his physical form began to shift and shimmer in unnatural ways. "Oh, God." He heard the martial artist's voice as if from very far away. "What's happening to him?"_

_"Aeris! Aeris, stay back, you can't let him get too close to you. I don't _know_ what's going on, but for God's sake, everyone keep a safe distance."_

_"Holy _shit_, Valentine! Calm the fuck down!"_

_Galian Beast was breaking out. He was what haunted the dark corners of his mind—lurking with the others. They had never seen the others—this was the first time that had even witnessed the appearance of Galian Beast—and neither had Vincent, truthfully, but, nonetheless, he _knew_ them somehow, with the very oldest part of his being. He knew them with the part of himself that came from the Planet, the part of him that sang in unison and complete harmony with the Lifestream; the part of him that knew things he was not privy to; the part of him that had seen, heard, and been involved in everything that had been, would be, and would never be in the Cosmos._

_He knew them with the part of him that he did not know._

_And with that knowledge came the truth that soon, _they_ would have their chance as well, but not then, and maybe not even in the near future, but their turn would be at hand someday. His body simply was not able to maintain and support their raw power of its own accord, no matter how enhanced. So, their taste of freedom would be stalled, for a little while, at least. _

_Every minute counted in the end._

_"_Shit_, let him handle this on his own. I think he—er…_it's_ got it damn well covered, by the fuckin' looks of it!"_

_Vincent snarled and saw red._

_When he "came to," he was lying on the ground in a cramped heap, covered in a sheen of cold sweat. He lifted his head slowly, almost knowing what the reactions would be. A slight bubble of surprise—something he did not feel often—swelled inside him at what he saw in their faces, however._

_Cid and Cloud looked slightly wary, which was to be expected of them; Tifa looked shocked and concerned; Aeris just looked plain concerned; Barret wore the countenance of the slightly afraid; Red XIII seemed impassive; and Cait Sith looked like…Cait Sith. _

_Yuffie's reaction was what really made him pause, though._

_"Whoa, Vinnie, that was _soooooooooo_ FREAKY!" Yuffie had a knack for breaking uncomfortable silences and even more uncomfortable loud periods. _

_She crouched down to peer at him with overly large gray eyes. "You were like RAWR and that monster was like KABLAM and then we were all like holy crap WHOA and you looked all drooly and smelly and grossness and—"_

_"Shit, kid, you gon' talk his damn ear off, you keep goin' on like that." Vincent _almost_ shot Barret a grateful look._

_"Care to explain that to us, Vincent?" Cloud broke in, staring levelly at him with strong blue eyes._

_"No," he answered flatly, rising fluidly and starting in the direction they had been going in before that rather powerful monster had ambushed them. After a moment, he heard the telltale signs of AVALANCHE tromping through the tall grass behind him. He knew he would have to explain what Galian Beast was at _some_ point, but not then. No, he would postpone it as long as he possibly could._

_- - - - - - - - - -_

Chaos needed something to do. Picking off humans provided some amount of entertainment, but then again, it was too easy. There had to be something that would provide a challenge. Humans worked better in numbers, with technology, if his time with Vincent indicated anything at all.

There were several heavily fortified places that he could go to, with lots of people for him to terrorize, but with enough of them that they would put up a suitable fight. He could go to Junon, but he never did like the look of that giant cannon, and one demon was no match for legions of soldiers with lots of guns, no matter how ancient and powerful a predator that demon might be. The same went for Edge. Golden Saucer was just too bright and noisy—in all likelihood, the people there would assume he was some sort of carnival attraction. Most anywhere else had people, but didn't seem to have the kind of organization that would provide him with amusement.

There had to be somewhere else.

Chaos suddenly had an epiphany, his reptilian gold eyes flashing with malignant glee.

He would go to Wutai.

- - - - - - - - - -

_Footsteps were approaching, fast, from behind. Too fast, for even with Vincent's quick reflexes, he had no time to react to the suddenness of the advance, other than to whirl around in surprise. He gasped, letting out a small, wordless grunt of pain as Rosso the Crimson plunged one pale hand straight into his chest. Something malicious flickered in Rosso's eyes as she literally fished around a bit in his chest cavity and then wrenched something from his flesh. _

_Vincent fell to one knee, wheezing slightly as he watched her, carefully. There wasn't much he could do to defend himself in such a weakened state, but fleeing would certainly be an option if it came down to it. Live to fight another day, someone had once said._

_"I'm sorry," said Rosso with a mocking pity in her voice, her full lips pouty. "Were you not expecting that?" Her accent grated on his nerves with an intensity he had never realized before._

_He gasped as a sudden wave of pain…no, not pain, something else, washed over him, and then he tipped over onto the ground, curling into a fetal position. He saw red, then realized that he wasn't seeing red, but that he was actually _glowing_ red. Something shifted, and he could feel himself tingling all over, morphing into Chaos. Fighting, clenching his teeth and mentally pushing back, he overcame the beast, thinking of nothing other than preventing the change. _

_"So, you cannot control the beast without this?" she queried, examining her prize intently in one perfectly manicured hand. "Well, there will be no need for it when I'm done with you."_

_Vincent almost didn't catch what happened next, so intent was he on Rosso's movements and keeping Chaos under the metaphorical lock and key. With a rush of displaced air, Rosso leapt backward, stumbling out of the way of a giant boomerang-shuriken. With a twinkle, it gleamed blindingly bright, startling Rosso. Vincent felt himself being slung indelicately over a shoulder, and then came the unfamiliar bumpy sensation of being carried by a running person._

_Muffled against the ringing in his ears, he heard one last thing from Rosso. "Wutai flea!"_

_And then, he passed out._

- - - - - - - - - -

Chaos veered sharply to the left, catching a warm updraft and gliding further skyward, circling lazily over the historic village of Wutai.

Wutai was ideal for Chaos' desires for suitable bloodshed because there were enough people that there would be mass amounts of pandemonium. The village was rife with warrior heritage and liked sticking to its old ways of battle. Old weapons were used, no matter how outdated, so the beast had no worries of things like giant energy cannons to thwart him. It would be amusing to watch the people's actions against him, as well as a sufficient amount of difficulty to go against the skills of these centuries-old people.

With a languid turn, he settled on one of the raised fists of Da Chao, his nails squealing as they gripped for purchase on the weather-smoothed stone. He opened his massive square jaw and let out a gusting roar that carried over the rooftops and into the town, bound to be heard by someone who was paying enough attention.

His superior eyesight zeroed in on a few people peering curiously out their front windows or front doors. Chaos sucked in a breath and let out another roar, this time drawing a _lot_ of attention. The faces already searching jerked up in his direction, spying something strange settled on their treasured landmark.

Interested, people started to gather in the streets, pointing and talking excitedly amongst themselves. Chaos waited until there were enough people milling around and then swept up into the air, riding the air currents until he could alight neatly on the top of the five story Pagoda gracing the edge of the town. Palace guards could be seen training their weapons on him, cocking a critical eye in his direction. He stretched his wings out, fluttering them in a deliberate attempt to intimidate.

Gasps rose from the crowds, as before when he had flown onto the roof. However, no move had been made toward this foreign presence gracing their skies. Chaos's yellow eyes gleamed and he lunged from the rooftop, coming out of his sharp descent with enough time to sweep a guard from his feet with a sharp claw, rending him wide open, with his blood pouring onto the old stone of their walkways.

This time, they scattered. A lot ran for cover or screamed, but there were a large amount that looked as though they had a purpose in the hellishness of the scene, sprinting for cover or for their homes.

A few come back momentarily with weapons in hand, ready and willing to duke it out with him. This was what the age-old demon had anticipated, a good fight without so much technology that he wouldn't be able to handle it. He twisted in the air, slowing his turns so that he descended, angling his wings into a rapid downward spiral. It grew into an erratic acrobatic twist. He seemed out of control, and the guards with long-range weapons lowered their bows, seeing no opening for their weapons here.

Chaos veered up and to the left, still spinning in mid-air, and delivered a crushing blow to the chest of one man, hearing his ribs break with a few satisfying _cracks_. His red eyes glazed with malevolent joy and he landed, planting his feet and going into some hand-to-hand maneuvers. He was too fast for them, jabbing left, right, up and down, going for every possible weak spot or opening he could get at. He hacked and slashed with his talons, deadly sharp and wickedly curved.

The scattered, confused palace guards regrouped, enfolding him in a circle, pushing him into the center of it. He lashed out rapidly, too fast to follow, but one of the warriors managed to snag his left wing, half-curled in the crook of his shoulder blade, with an odd-looking whip. It stung at the initial contact, and continued to sting as Chaos realized that it was barbed, hooking into his flesh and pulling, ripping the delicate, leathery tissues there. His reptilian wings could withstand a lot of damage, and healed quickly, but the kind of extensive shredding this was causing would not be a quick process to mend.

The demon took the whip in his metal hand, heedless of the horrible grating sound of the whip's barbs against his gauntlet and yanked, pulling the owner forward rapidly and impaling him through the neck with his free hand. Chaos threw the body, still bleeding, at two more men who were approaching him, and tore the whip from his wing with a disgusting shredding sound. Blood poured from the wound there, rendering flight impossible at the moment. There went one escape route, but that just made the challenge all the more interesting.

One person got close enough to lash out with a blade, but Chaos merely grabbed it with his bare hand and threw it to the side. He leapt on the man, knocking him to the ground and biting into the main artery of his throat. He dug a little deeper and severed the man's windpipe, effectively cutting off his cries. With a bit more pressure, a large hunk of flesh came off in his mouth and he straightened, chewing and swallowing appreciatively.

The shock of this sight was so great that the attacks weakened momentarily. The looks on the faces of the surrounding guards were a mixture of horrified, angered, and sickened. Chaos bared his teeth in the approximation of a grin, gore mixed with saliva dribbling from his stained fangs and dripping off his chin. Their faces darkened and their assault resumed, more intense and better than ever. Chaos could feel the bloodlust thrumming through his veins, pounding out an entertaining rhythm as he delivered blow after blow to the participants in his game.

- - - - - - - - - -

"_Okay, Vincent, time's run out for you to stall and hedge around this. We put up with it when you turned into the first one, but this one's newer and, frankly, creepier. What goes on with you in battle?"_

_That day, they had fought another one of Jenova's extensions. As they had, Vincent had found himself being taken over by another, completely different presence than what he had come to call Galian Beast. This one had shaped his body differently, molding his hands into gigantic, club-shaped weapons of blunt force, and limiting his mental capacities severely. Where Galian Beast had been rather intelligent, this one's wits were dulled, but the brute strength in the form of him and the stubborn determination that came with his small mind were the advantages. Vincent now knew him to be called Death Gigas._

_Cloud's eyes were relentless, inescapable and endlessly blue. Blue, blue, blue, like the sky, like the sea, like everything unchangeable and strong and natural in the world. Except Cloud wasn't natural and neither were his eyes. Funny how things like that compared to others._

_This was it; this was the time they would kick him out with accusations and incriminations and fear and shock. They had been remarkably patient with him so far, but he could no longer avoid it. He had to tell them what he was, what he had been made into. This part of him was always unavoidable, no matter how hard he tried. Everything and anything good in his life was destroyed by the killer in him, be it his trained instinct or be it demons planted in his mind by a scientist with distorted visions of perfection._

_Well, if they wanted to run him off, they had another thing coming. He wouldn't stand for humiliation and hatefulness from them, people to whom he had given the only loyalty he had left. He would just go. There was no use pretending that anything else could come of this situation, and there was no use trying to postpone it, so he would save them all the pain and the effort and the time and he would just leave. It would be easier for everyone there._

_He headed for the door to the room in the inn where everyone was congregated as they usually were after a day of traveling. He had his flesh hand on the knob before Cloud made him pause._

_"Vincent, where are you going?"_

_Vincent turned halfway, his hair falling forward to hide his face. "I am leaving. It is better this way, for all of you. There will be no need to participate in an argument. I will go and save you the trouble."_

_Tifa spoke up. "But, Vincent, what would there be to argue about? We really just want to know. It's not every day you see something like…well…that."_

_Vincent cringed inwardly at her phrasing. 'That.' Funny how much meaning could be infused into a single-syllable word the way Tifa just had. She seemed to realize that her tone hadn't been very tactful and she grimaced, whether at herself or at him, he didn't know._

_He turned once more to leave and was halted this time by Red XIII. "We do not wish you to leave. We merely wish for you to trust us. Is that so hard, after what we have been through together, as a team?"_

_His hand fell slowly from the knob and he turned fully around to face them, hesitant. Despite his misgivings, Red's words had precisely and neatly opened up an old, scabbed wound that he didn't like exploring because it seemed to make him weak, as he felt it was doing to him now. All he knew was that he wanted to tell them so desperately, just wanted to be accepted, even with what he was, yet knowing that there was no way they would not shy away in fear or disgust. But at the same time, they deserved an explanation, at least, before he took his leave, and he was going to give it, no matter how much he didn't want to._

_He leaned against the door, ready to take his exit when it would inevitably be time. He adopted a cool, indifferent mask as he began to describe to them what they were seeing._

_"I, myself, am not entirely certain what happens," he said in his low, velvet voice. "I am…in control, in a way, but then there is part of the beast that takes over, becomes one with my body and steals away my will. The only thing that I know when this happens is that I have to fight and I have to do it until my enemy is defeated. The…form…you have grown accustomed to—I call it Galian Beast. This new one…is Death Gigas."_

_"Any idea how the hell you came to be able to do whatever it is you be doin' when you turn into them things?" Barret asked in a genuinely curious way._

_"I…cannot…tell you."_

_Cid lifted his eyebrows and blew smoke out of his nostrils. "What choo mean you cain't tell us?" _

_Vincent struggled not to make a pained face as he tried to come up with a suitable explanation. "There are some…things—"_

_"You don't—you…don't have to tell us if you don't want to, Vincent. We—I understand." Tifa's words were a miracle to him then._

_Briefly, to regain himself, he closed his eyes, then reopened them, contained and unruffled once more. Cait Sith was waving his hand in the air, squealing "oo, pick me, pick meeee" in a high-pitched sort of way. Vincent ignored the surge of annoyance that washed through him at the sight of the electronic cat acting idiotic as usual, but he restrained his impatient sigh and merely nodded at the thing._

_"You're not gonna go all freaky-like and try and rip our throats out, are ya, Vince?"_

_This was what Vincent had feared. This was what he had been anticipating from the start of the conversation, when Cloud had chosen to question him about it. _

_"I…don't know."_

_Their eyes widened collectively. "What do you mean you _don't know_?" Cloud asked severely._

_Vincent's sharp red eyes shot to Cloud's, unblinking. "I mean that I do not know. This is as new to me as it is to you. All that has been happening is something that I have never experienced before."_

_"So you don't _know_ if you could be a threat to any one of us? You could just turn around with those claws and start ripping us to bits or smashing us with those hammer fists on this 'Death Gigas' guy or whatever?"_

_Vincent looked somewhere past Cloud's right ear. "It is a possibility."_

_"And you've been endangering us this whole time without telling us at all? Can't you just…_make it go away_ or something?" Cloud's voice had risen to a frantic, angry pitch._

_"I cannot '_make it go away_' any more than you can stop Sephiroth at this point." Vincent glared coldly at him, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. "I will take my leave now."_

_As he turned, a frantic voice stopped him a third time. _

_"Vinnie would never hurt any of us, guys!" He whirled to see that Yuffie had sat up at her place on the bed where they had presumed her sleeping, tired out from the long day. Her voice was shrill and her hair was wild and her eyes were bleary with sleep._

_"I can't believe you guys are even thinkin' that kinda crap. 'S not like he's done anything but save our asses before now, so why should it be any different if some creepy old ghoulies are helpin' him out, huh? So he turns a bit ugly and bad-tempered and grossness at times, big whoop. If you're really _that _worried about it, we could just…" Here, her speech was broken by a tremendous yawn. "…just feed the stupid dog-lizard-thing a bone or somethin'. Jeez."_

_And with that, Yuffie flopped down on the bed and went promptly back to sleep. They all stared at her as she muttered a few times and rolled over, but it only took a moment for attention to be redirected to Vincent. _

_Nanaki voiced his opinion in that low-growl of a voice he had. "Yuffie is right. I do not see any reason that we should suddenly present Vincent with out backs because of a little hitch like…uhm…'ghoulies' helping him fight."_

_Cid nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I got some bones if we really do need 'em, Valentine." The blonde pilot grinned at the gunslinger around his mouthful of burnt-down cigarette butt. _

_Cloud looked slightly challenging, but it slipped from his features as he glanced once more at Yuffie, and then back at Vincent. He hesitated for a moment. "I'm hungry. Anyone else hungry? Vincent, what do you think we should have for dinner?"_

- - - - - - - - - -

Chaos surveyed the damage around him with a malicious sort of glee. It was perfect. There were bodies strewn about in horrifying positions that they were never, ever meant to accomplish in life. Not a single guard was still standing to challenge him. Over one-hundred warriors, dispatched within the hour. Blood coated most of his skin and the ragged remains of Vincent's clothing, along with flecks of gore and his own dark brownish bodily fluids. His mouth tasted coppery from biting and tearing at skin, and he relished the aftertaste of battle on his tongue, thick and sweet.

But now he was rather hungry, as he tended to feel after a good workout, and without food energy, his wing would not heal properly and swiftly. He needed it to make a good exit and plan what to do next.

Dinner, dinner, dinner, what was he in the mood for…? Ah, there it was. A smell distinguished itself from the others that were constantly assailing his superior senses, and he recognized it as young children. Not so soft that they were like pudding to him, but just young and inexperienced enough to be tender and juicy.

He took off, speeding through the town at a breakneck pace, finding the streets empty and free of any obstacles. People had retreated into their homes to hide from him. He could hear as well as smell them, and he took a sadistic glee out of the palpable tension in the air wherever he went.

But now he found himself in front of the entrance to a school of some sort. It had been a very long time since Chaos had found himself on the planet and Vincent did not know Wutaian, so he could not read the sign above the door. So, with his equivalent of a shrug, the demon slashed through the doors and entered the school with a flair that would send clouds of fear into the air like seasonings before his meal.

Immediately, Chaos realized he was in a school for training young ninjas, and felt that this would be a very entertaining meal indeed. He would get to _catch_ his lunch. Not that it would be very difficult, but what fun would it be if they just came to him, anyway?

He swept aside the sliding wall that served as a door and stared down a training room of girls and boys somewhere in the age group of eight to ten years of age. He trained his yellow eyes on one particular little girl, who was trembling and giving off so strong a smell of fear that he almost licked his lips.

He lunged, going straight for her, and felt a sting as something embedded itself in his side and caused blood to further stain Vincent's remaining shreds of fabric that were once clothes. He snarled and continued on the same path, catching her by the throat with his flesh hand, mindful of the talons, and bringing her around so that her back was pressed into his chest. She screamed and thrashed wildly, trying to get away as best as she could, but he had her and there was no way he was letting her get away. He held her so that she was facing her classmates, who had taken some varied basic battle stances and were prepared to fight him. He had them at a stalemate, however, as he had the girl in _his_ hands.

The teacher took that moment to enter from wherever she had been, clearly having heard the commotion and sprinted to get there. She came at him, eyes blazing, ready to defend her charges with her life, but Chaos merely lowered his head, bared his fangs, and sank their sharp points straight into the wide-eyed girl's neck, lapping up the blood that gushed from her opened throat. She gasped and choked, and he watched as the gleam of life quickly faded from her eyes. The teacher stopped dead at what she saw, dumbstruck.

He sucked grotesquely at the open hole in her jugular, getting the last drops from her cooling body before dropping her to the floor, stepping on her. That was all it took for all hell to break loose.

The teacher got to him first, pulling neatly stashed little kunai from holders around her body. She matched him blow for blow, attempting to puncture his flesh with the tiny daggers and failing as he blocked each pass with his metal claw. The kids started in on him too, frantic and scared, but determined in what little training they had had up to that point. A few of them had tiny weapons—staffs, blades, more throwing-stars. They stung a little, but he managed to ignore them until he had slain the master, dropping her limp corpse to the floor.

They were still attacking him, but he blocked easily and picked one of the more tenacious ones for his next meal. He grabbed the struggling boy by the collar and lifted him off the ground, peering into his face delightedly. With one claw, he traced the contour of the kid's jaw, dodging the snapping teeth and leaving a long red scratch in the wake of that talon. His hand trailed to the chest, where he could hear the thump of a heartbeat, and he was just tensing to plunge his claws in and rip it out, when the sound of something coming at him through the air forced him to drop the boy.

He pivoted and caught the sharp tip of the shuriken arcing downward toward his face, grinning disgustingly at the owner of the weapon.

Yuffie's face was contorted with rage and hideous with a deep, fierce hatred of the demon before her. A snarl ripped from her throat, animalistic and harsh, as she tried for another swing at him and failed as he blocked once again. He parried, almost catching her in the abdomen, but she managed to backflip out of the way at the last instant, springing lithely into the acrobatic feat and landing in a crouch.

By this time, the kids had already scrambled out of the room to the door, frightened and beaten, and all that was left was Yuffie and Chaos.

"How…_could you_? You're fucking _DISGUSTING_. I thought you could _never_ hurt anyone, but I was wrong. I was wrong to trust you and I was fucking wrong to ever let you near me!" she shrieked, shaking with fury. Chaos's knuckled cracked as he flexed his flesh hand, and she ground her teeth visibly, a jaw in her muscle clenching.

"I'm gonna kill you for coming into _my_ home and killing _my_ people and thinking you can exist in _my _world! If I hadn't been up on that mountain when you arrived, I'd have been down here to rip your ass to shreds before you caused all the damage. As it stands, now I just have even more reason to tear out your throat…_with my BARE HANDS_!"

She leapt forward, coming at him in a flurry of blows that he blocked with considerably more effort than any of the other swings that the guards had taken at him. Had she been there earlier, he suspected he'd have had much less fun.

"Chaos, I'm sending you _back to where you came from_!"

- - - - - - - - - -

_It was cold in the crystal cavern, and the light played about Vincent's face eerily, setting his pale face off like a canvas with different shades of greens and blue. The water dripped solemnly from the top of the roof of the lonely cave and sent shimmering ripples into the pool of water at his feet. Everything shimmered in the crystal cavern. He thought it was only fitting that Lucrecia have such a beautiful final resting place._

_He stared up into her lovely face, frozen forever in the serenity of that crystal, imprisoned by her own Mako experiments. Imprisoned, laughably, by her own design. After everything he had been through, he needed to visit one last time, to tell her, to speak with her._

_"Lucrecia…" His voice echoed strangely off the glistening walls, bouncing back at him as if taunting him for coming there, for speaking with a dead woman. "Everything's all right now. Omega and Chaos have returned to the Planet."_

- - - - - - - - - -

For one split second, Chaos hesitated, memory flickering and registering in his yellow eyes, and Yuffie, driven by hated and anger, saw her opening and seized it.

"Hyah!" she cried as she forced one of four cruel metal edges on her weapon into the soft, unprotected flesh of his belly.

With a choking noise, Chaos looked down, and suddenly, Chaos was not Chaos. Chaos was Vincent because Vincent knew that there was no Chaos any longer. Chaos had been sent back from whence Chaos had come, leaving Vincent's mind to peace.

The image of Yuffie sprung away, dissolving into darkness with the rest of the world there, and, with a sigh, Vincent wrenched the boomerang-shuriken from his gut and watched as the hole closed and the shuriken dissolved too, winking almost playfully at him in the fading light of deception.


	10. Chapter 10

Vincent stared at his hands. Just moments ago, just minutes ago, fresh blood had run over them, cascaded and rushed, hot and vile. And he had liked it. He had liked it and reveled in it and it had felt delicious to him.

Chaos. Being Chaos once more was a unique experience. Unique in the way that you think you are completely rid of something and then it returns. He should have known that he'd never be completely done with that particular burden. You couldn't just _drop_ your sins like an old cloak, something he had remembered sharply with this latest obstacle, this latest hurdle to leap.

Chaos was gone, but this had just served to remind him of the damages he had caused, real and unreal. His hands were tainted by the blood that had been there, and he stared at them, rapt, as he turned them over in the nonexistent light, or whatever let him see in the void.

His right hand was pale, lean, and delicate to the eye. But there was a strength in the subtle, supple arch to his fingers and the callous on his index finger from pulling the trigger too many times. Aeris had once told him briefly, with a contemplative look in her eyes, that he had pianist hands. She had realized her slip, blushed, and apologized, but afterward, he had stared at his flesh hand, wondering at what she could see in a hand. But now he gazed at his hand and slightly understood what she had meant, what she had found there.

He switched his studying to his gauntlet, to its sharp, gleaming digits. It was deadly, and it was part of him. The bronze sparkled dully at him in the darkness, seducing his gaze like a thousand unrecognized dreams. It looked cruel, it looked deadly, and it looked cold. It _was_ cruel, and it _was_ deadly, and it _was_ cold.

Side-by-side, left and right, bones and blood next to metal and gears. This was a contrast that he knew very well. This was Vincent Valentine: a sad excuse for a human being who had barely had any time to learn what it was to have a soul before it was sold away to demons and broken promises.

But that was what made him. That was what had sent him on this fool's errand of a quest, this hopeless mental and physical torment. _He_ had not had his shot at a soul, but he would be damned if someone else suffered his same fate, if slightly different.

- - - - - - - - - -

"_Vinnie, what if—"_

_His head snapped up; a burning, smoldering, searing heat in his impossibly red eyes. He was angry, and she had rarely ever seen him that way._

_"Why, Yuffie?" he asked her. "Why do you ask _me_ these questions? What tells you that I will know the answers?"_

_Yuffie stared right back at him, unnerved by his demeanor. His voice was steady, calm, low and dark as velvet, just like it always was, but resentment and repressed anger practically radiated off of his person._

_"I—"_

_"Do you think that I know the answers to the whims of the dying? Do you think I know what lies beyond the world of the living? Do you think I have the knowledge of death?"_

_Her eyes darkened, stormed, and he knew then that he had made her angry at him in return for his unnecessary fury. But instead of yelling and raging like she usually did in a fit of temper, she surprised him. She tended to do that quite often, as of late._

_"You know, Vinnie, you could just leave."_

_His eyes widened fractionally, taking her in. She was disheveled, her hair in a bushy halo around her head, and she was painfully thin, gaunt even. Her eyes were bright with something he couldn't initially identify, accentuated strongly by her hollow cheekbones and the deep smudges underneath. When it hit him what it was, he was staggered._

_Yuffie had the look of someone who was dying._

_She _was_ dying. He knew it. She knew it. They all knew it. No one talked about it aloud; it was taboo. But this time, there was something else there in her gaze. She wasn't just dying. She was _dying_. She had done what he never thought possible for Yuffie Kisaragi. She had given up her hope. In the end, and the end was drawing nearer, that was all that Yuffie had left, and she clung to it like a drowning person. But now, he saw none of that in her eyes. There was only a strong, quiet, steady resignation._

_Something in him snapped, and, for one moment, he lost control. That was really all it took._

_He grabbed her by the collar of her soft shirt and wrenched her forward, coming nose to nose with her, so close he could smell the sweet chocolate pudding they had given her for an after-lunch dessert. The sugar helped her energy somewhat, and the chocolate was mentally comforting for her._

_"Don't you ever even _think_ about it," he snarled. She was startled at his behavior. Vincent losing control only happened with the demons, and that problem had been solved more than a few years before._

_In that same level tone, the one that belied her overwhelming anger, she replied, "Think…about…what, Vincent? _What._"_

_"Dammit, Yuffie. There's _always_ a way. There _is_ a way. I don't care what I have to do, I'll find it, and I'll…"_

_He was speaking so harshly that he was spitting. She didn't move back. "You'll…what?"_

_His mouth, still open after trailing off, snapped shut with an audible _click_, so close to her nose that he almost took away a bit of skin in the process. Slowly, painstakingly, he uncurled his fingers from her neckline and released her, bypassing the chair he had vacated so hastily moments before to go toward the door. _

_"Vinnie…"_

_That voice. It was so small. He turned and studied her. She was pale, shaking, and sweating, and she looked exhausted. He turned back to the door and made his exit._

- - - - - - - - - -

Memories floated around in his brain in no particular order, surfacing briefly before being buried again in a wave of more memories. He couldn't just stand there in the void forever, he knew, but he was thinking, and there wasn't much that could stop a thought process like the one he was having.

Except maybe the little stars hovering around his vision, and why in the world was he suddenly lying on the ground? Something had hit him in the head, hard.

It took only a split-second for his reflexes to bite him in the ass, and he scolded himself for it having taken even _that_ long. _Stupid…_

Vincent rolled out of his undignified sprawl on the ground and straight into a crouch, defensive and poised. He hadn't thought he would need his guns _here_ of all places, considering he'd been safe in the abyss up this point, but he pulled Cerberus out of its holster and cocked it, peering hard into the darkness around him.

He lunged to the side at the sound of approaching footsteps—_light, small build, running_—from behind him. He did a full backward somersault and swept upward, uncurling into a standing position, gun cocked and aimed. He was so startled at who was coming at him that his hands went slack and his mouth dropped slightly open and he almost _dropped_ Cerberus.

As it was, that surprised relaxation of his muscles saved him, and since his momentum was already going that way, he let his body fall to the left as the razor-edge of Yuffie's boomerang-shuriken swept down where his head had been not a second before. He caught himself on his metal hand, which he suddenly found was squealing against bare brown rock. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of reflected light from Yuffie's weapon and shifted to the side. He kicked out his foot at the right moment and managed to hit her in the shin. She lost her balance and fell backward, turning it into a flip and soaring back into the air like a spring.

The light from the flash he had detected was from the sudden flames around them. They were standing in a sort of arena, large, circular, and rough-hewn from rock. It dropped off sharply on its edges, disappearing in the hungry flames that licked at its boundaries. The ceiling rose high overhead, a dome of that same, dirty-brown rock.

Vincent's observations spawned from a few quick glances at his surroundings as he surged to his feet in a swirling cloud of cape. He couldn't hurt Yuffie, he knew, so he holstered his weapon and had no further time for thought because Yuffie directed a punch straight at his nose. His gauntlet flashed as he blocked her fist with it, and her knuckles struck the metal with a resounding _clang_.

She didn't stop at the pain the impact had to have caused; she didn't even _blink_. She just threw her other fist in the direction of his gut, which he knocked aside with the barrel of Cerberus. He sidestepped her left foot and dashed to the other end of the arena. She started to circle around slowly, so he matched her, going the opposite direction.

"Yuffie," Vincent addressed her, voice resonating through the cavern. "I don't want to hurt you."

In response, she planted her feet shoulder-width apart and spun around in swift circles, both hands held out in front of her, grasping the Conformer firmly. On her third turn, when she was facing his direction, she released it, but he was prepared, as he had seen her execute this maneuver before, and he dodged out of the way. A moment afterward, he turned and was forced to duck as the boomerang-shuriken wheeled back around in the air and returned to its master via the space his torso had been occupying.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" he shouted as she flew at him again. "_What are you doing?_"

Her gray eyes were flat and dull as she landed a kick to his ribs and sent him flying, thankfully far from the edge of the platform. He got to his feet again, defending himself against her as she furiously battered away at him. Only occasionally did she manage to hit him, and he was not getting tired. This could go on forever unless he figured out what was happening.

Another illusion, perhaps? Even so, there was an object to it, something he had to do to which he didn't know the answer. There had been an ultimate goal to everything that had happened to him here, but for all he tried, he could not think of a single point that could be made from this.

For all the things that Vincent was unsure of about Yuffie, there was one thing he knew without a doubt: she was absolutely lethal in a fight. Whether it be one-on-one or one-on-one-hundred, she was excellent.

Yuffie fought with a kind of swift, precise determination that would surprise anyone who had never seen her do battle before. She had an intensity that she never used when she wasn't fighting. Her body was small, which gave her an ease at supporting herself in elaborate acrobatic maneuvers. She somersaulted over and under and twisted in and out and swung back and forth and never stopped for breath the way a normal person would. She didn't need it. That unchecked, boundless energy that annoyed so many people made her an excellent fighter. She almost never got tired, and after a while, whoever or whatever was fighting her _did_ get tired.

She was fast. That lightness that let her twist and turn and wriggle her way out of a tight situation let her be lightning quick, with rapid-fire reflexes. Those same reflexes had been honed and sharpened into the wit of a ninja, giving her the skill and strength required to correctly throw a boomerang-shuriken so that it came back. And to catch it without harming herself on the sharp points.

She was lithe, and it hadn't worn off with age. Vincent had seen Yuffie run straight up walls before without so much as batting an eye. Vincent had seen Yuffie leap from fifty foot tall buildings and land like a cat and with the same exact cat-like twinkle in her eyes and not have a single broken bone or bruise on her body.

Vincent had seen Yuffie demolish her victims so many times simply through her confusing movements. She was so fast and so skilled that she could vary her pace to a bewildering variation. There was no pattern to where she went or the speed she went at and it could be dizzying to be on the receiving end of such an advance.

Now _Vincent_ was the one on the bullet-end of Yuffie's barrel, and he had never experienced this before. He was at a serious disadvantage there. Ninjas were one thing—Yuffie Kisaragi was another area entirely.

- - - - - - - - - -

_Three months ago, Yuffie Kisaragi had been diagnosed with a fatal illness. _

_Vincent found himself hesitant to admit it, but he admired her tenacity in the face of death. He did not admire her adamant denial that she was dying because Vincent never had been one to approve of lying, even to oneself, but he _did_ admire the way she was handling the news._

_Three months ago, Yuffie Kisaragi had been diagnosed with a fatal illness and after a week of wallowing, she had thrown herself fervently into training long and hard hours. From the break of dawn to dusk she would train herself, sparring with the palace guards, honing her weapons skills with bows, blades, and shurikens. The members of AVALANCHE would periodically check in on her—the members still in Wutai. _

_Cid had gone back to Rocket Town, which was fine for him because he could fly over on the airship at any time. Tifa was still there, worried about Yuffie. Cloud had gone back to the orphanage to look over the kids. Reeve was keeping in contact, Barret was back in Edge with Marlene, and Nanaki had stayed as well. As for himself, well, Vincent didn't have anywhere else to be really, and he was at least needed slightly in Wutai._

_One day when Vincent stopped by to look into Yuffie's designated "spot," she caught sight of him and dropped her defensive stance for an offensive stance. She beckoned to him slightly, indicating that she wanted to spar with him. Following a whim, he nodded and unfastened his cape, unbuckled his belt with his holsters on it, and dropped them both to the ground at his feet. _

_Vincent knew a good bit about hand-to-hand combat. Even though he was one of the Turks who had been specifically trained for the firearms field, those Turks had also been required to learn basic field moves, which he had honed and expanded upon with time._

_She came at him, fists out and eyes blazing. They were heavily involved in the match when something went wrong and she just sort of…collapsed. He only blinked once before kicking into high gear and going to her side. _

_"Yuffie, are you all right?" His voice was tinged with an uncharacteristic concern. _

_Her eyes fluttered open after a few moments. She blinked confusedly at the sunlight in her eyes and at him standing over her. He could see that she was pale, very pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Come to think of it, she was looking awfully thin. Yuffie was _always_ delicately thin, but this was an unhealthy thin, and the bones at her joints jutted out at odd angles._

_How had he not noticed this before? Surely Tifa…or Red…_

_She panted as she tried to reply. "I…I'm fine…Vinnie. Just…gimme a few seconds…and I'll be up and right…right as rain!" The authority in that statement was undermined by the fact that she started to cough at the end of the sentence._

_His eyes hardened. "I think not. You're pushing yourself too hard, Yuffie." With that, he scooped her straight up into his arms, cradling her like a baby, and took her back to her home where he tucked her into the bed with something like care. It was a good thing Tifa and Red were out on the town, doing who knew what, or else Tifa would be stiflingly worried and Red would be admonishing._

_"I'm _fine_, Vincent. Just…just tired." Her gaze was flinty._

_He lifted a dark brow. "You just passed out in the middle of a sparring match and you're 'just tired'? Yuffie, you are ill. You shouldn't push yourself this way."_

_"Push myself _what_ way, Vincent? Just because I'm gonna _die_ doesn't mean I'm gonna sit around and waste away. If I've gotta let my insides dissolve and drain all over the damn carpet, why not do it in the middle of a fight?"_

_Stunned, he stared at her._

_"Didn't expect _that_, did you, Vincent? Well, face it because it's the cold, hard truth, and no matter how hard I push, now matter how far I try to run away, I'm _still a dead woman._"_

_Something snapped almost audibly within him then, and he reacted blindly, slapping her clear across the face. She glared hatefully at him for a few moments, and then her eyes filled and she was crying huge, hot tears of shame. _

_"I…" she choked, breaking off._

_Yuffie threw herself abruptly and forcefully into his chest, spilling her tears onto the fabric of his shirt without holding back. He resisted the urge to bolt at her sudden nearness, and willed himself to, instead, relax his muscles, to kill that impulse to just jump away. He was at a loss as to the proper thing to do for a while, so after a few tense moments, he brought his arms up around her and rubbed small circles into her back until she calmed down._

_The crying had stopped, but Yuffie was still curled into his chest. His lap, really, as he had grown tired of standing in so awkward a position and just allowed his knees to buckle and land him a soft spot on the bed. She had shifted to get more comfortable and was now practically sitting on him, which was disconcerting to say the least._

_The ninja woman sniffed, hard, and looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm…I'm sorry, Vinnie. It's just so…hard to think about sometimes. I…I don't wanna die, Vincent."_

_A surge of compassion rose in him at the stark despair in her voice, and he tightened his grip on her, resting his chin on her head. "You're not going to die, Yuffie. We will find a way. We always find a way."_

_She looked up then, breaking his grip on her a bit. She was grinning through the puffiness that the sobbing had caused. "Urgh, Vinnie, you sound all mushy. Keep this up and you're gonna make me blow chunks."_

_He contained the sigh that was threatening to escape at her words._

_"Now," she said, flopping back onto the bed. "I'm ill and distraught and you are at my beck and call. Make me soup, slave."_

_Vincent walked out shaking his head in wonder._

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent bent himself nearly backwards as he avoided a kick intended for his head. Some absurd part of his brain thought of playing with a limbo stick, but he ignored it. He planted his hands behind him on the ground, doing a backbend, and catapulted his feet into the air to do a full flip. He came out of this twist blocking once more. Yuffie was relentless.

There was nothing for it, then. He was going to have to see if he could immobilize her. Maybe if he knocked her around a bit she wouldn't be acting as if her brains were quite so addled—the irony of it was not lost on him.

The next time she came at him, fists flailing, he knocked her hands away with his foot and followed it up by a punch to the gut with his gauntlet. She didn't act as though it affected her at all, continuing her barrage. He skirted a swing, and she overstepped, losing her impeccable balance slightly, and he brought his left elbow back, swift and sharp. He heard the wind leave her ribcage with a _whoosh_. She reached a hand around and snagged the crook of his arm, twisting it up behind him and kneeing him in the back.

He had a split-second to hesitate on the decision before he reared up and nailed her straight in the face with the back of his head. He thought he might've heard the sound of bone cracking and turned around to see that her nose was broken and gushing blood freely. She wiped her hand across the lower half of her face, attempting to remove it, but only successful in smearing it thickly.

A low kick at his knees was checked by him grabbing her ankle and tugging it out from under her. Falling on her tailbone sharply, an instant later she twisted artfully, wrenching her limb away from his metal grip. Blood and skin tore off in the process, his razor-edged digits snagging in her flesh.

She was bleeding heavily, and he barely had a scratch on him to show of her efforts. For all that Yuffie was fast, Vincent was sturdy and had more years under his belt. She never had been able to best him when they sparred, and now was no different.

- - - - - - - - - -

"_Again!"_

_Vincent exhaled softly through his nose. It was _like_ a sigh, but it wasn't because Vincent Valentine definitely did _not_ sigh. "Yuffie, I've beaten you three times now. I think it is time we rest."_

_She turned her head to the side and spit a bit of blood onto the ground. This past round, he had accidentally hit her hard enough that she bit down on her lip and split it wide open. It had mostly stopped bleeding by that point. _

_"No, not until I beat you at _least_ once, Vinnie."_

_"You will not win."_

_"And what makes _you_ so freakin' sure?" Her expression was defiant.._

_"Because you are not putting yourself into the battle."_

_"What the hell do you mean by _that_?"_

_"You have to give a piece of yourself every time you fight, or you get results like this."_

_"Well, Mr. I-Am-An-Enigma-Wrapped-In-A-Puzzle-That-Happens-to-Be-Having-A-Dirty-Love-Affair-With-A-Riddle, how do you propose I 'put myself into the fight'?" She infused the last statement with so much derision, he could swear it was melting the ground they stood upon. She was furious that she couldn't win, and he could tell._

_He shrugged, this time. It was something he had never been good at, shaping things into words. He had told her all he could, and it was basically up to her from this point forward to use it if she chose. She'd just have to figure out how._

_She rolled her eyes at him, one hand on her hip. "Fat lot of good it does to learn something new but have no idea how to use it."_

_"Use that."_

_Yuffie stared through a few pieces of hair hanging in her eyes. "…I hate you."_

_One corner of his mouth twitched. "I know."_

_"Ready for another round?"_

_"Yes."_

- - - - - - - - - -

There was _nothing_ in her eyes, this time. No passion, no fire, none of that burning that he had become accustomed to associating with Yuffie. One thing about Yuffie was that she exuded energy. It rolled off of her in waves, and her whole being was almost on _fire_ to the touch, if you were sensitive to emotions and energy like Vincent was. Having demons attuned you to different things, and on a small scale, he could feel things of that nature.

But now he looked into her gaze and it was flat and dull and empty, like a stagnant pool of water. She fought, yes, but there was no passion there. She was not putting herself into it, and he was steadily gaining the upper hand.

Yuffie was tireless, and there was definitely something wrong with her. His sole purpose in being there was to take her back home, to the world of the living. He had finally finished these ridiculous tasks, and he was finally near her, and they could finally leave, if she would just stop trying to kick his ass long enough to listen to reason.

But she was having none of that, and it was getting harder for him to keep up. This could go on for hours before he got completely exhausted, and then she would win. But he couldn't have that, and there was something overpoweringly _wrong_ feeling about this, and he knew what he had to do, even if everything screamed at him not to do it.

Vincent pulled out Cerberus with its three gleaming barrels, laced with intricate engravings and symbols. His trigger finger was, as always, steady, and he had a perfect shot at her chest as she made for him again, but he hesitated.

And that was all the opening Yuffie needed, kicking the gun to point in a different direction. He kept a firm grip on it though, choosing to use it as something to hit her with as he fought back. Several more times he had the chance to pull the trigger and put a stop to the uselessness of the whole situation, but each and every time, he faltered.

He just needed to immobilize her, he decided. So, the next time he had the shot, he took it, shooting her straight through the thigh. The three bullets from Cerberus's tri-barrel hit home, spraying her blood through the air. He expected her to cry out, to fall to her knees, to falter, anything, but she merely braced herself against the shot and continued her endless flurry of blows.

He tried again, this time in the other leg. And again, in each of her arms. Nothing worked. Nothing was making her pause.

Yuffie had picked up her shuriken once more from the ground where she had discarded it in favor of using her hands and feet. She tried for a sharp jab aimed at his middle, but he grabbed her wrist with his metal hand and twisted abruptly; her fingers loosened and the weapon clattered to the stone floor. She wriggled out of his grip, lightning-fast, but he stretched out his boot and hooked her behind the knee, knocking her straight to the ground.

Before she could move again, he placed one foot firmly on her neck, pressing her into the floor. She was making little gasping noises now, but her eyes still held nothing, a gray abyss. He pressed harder, willing something, _anything_ to be there. His hopes were crushed as much as her throat under his shoe, though.

A cold, heavy emptiness settled over him like a blanket, and Vincent lifted his gun, pointed it at her head, and…

Done.

Her eyes were just as dead as they had been before the bullets in her brain.

Yuffie Kisaragi was dead. Again.

He had killed her.

Vincent Valentine choked on his own breath once, twice, and Vincent Valentine cried hot, bitter tears. For himself, for Yuffie, for everyone he had ever touched. For the world, for Lucrecia, for Hojo, for Cloud, for Reeve, for Red XIII, for Aeris, for Tifa, for Cid, for Barret, for Marlene, for Sephiroth. For Loz, Kadaj, Yazoo. For Reno and Rude, for Tseng and Elena.

Vincent Valentine curled into a ball on the ground, letting his tears wash over his face, into his hair, into the stone. The salt sat on his lips, a bitter tang, and the water left sticky trails on his skin, his cheeks, his neck. He washed away his regrets with those tears, with that pain, and he washed away parts of himself that he had clung to for far too long.

Vincent Valentine cried.

It was the second time in thirty years.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Here it is, readers, the very first author's note of the fic and the very last chapter of A Fine Line. This was my first completed story that ended up over fifty thousand words, and I want to thank all of you for following along and bringing in other readers. I'm quite proud of this and the attention it received, and I'm glad that anyone at all took the time to read it.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Jeez, Vinnie, you sure do cry over me a lot lately."

Vincent jerked upright at the sound of that very familiar voice. He stared, eyes wide and unblinking, at the form of one Yuffie Kisaragi, Single White Rose of Wutai.

In that moment, she was the most beautiful thing he had seen in a long while.

"Yuffie," he choked around the thickness in his throat.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, get up, you idiot." With a derisive look on her face, she kicked the dead body that looked exactly like her. "That is _not _me.But woo, you sure did a number on it. Note to self: do not try to kick Vinnie's ass ever again."

Vincent couldn't do anything but stare hopelessly at her. He had come all this way to rescue her, to take her soul back, all at great personal tragedy and wounding, and then he had had to _kill_ her. He thought he was completely broken then. Everything he had come there for was gone, and what purpose was there to even go on now that he had killed the very thing he had set out to protect? But there she was, standing right there in the flesh, acting as though she wasn't dead, acting as though they weren't in Hell…

Acting exactly like Yuffie Kisaragi _would_ act if she found out she were dead.

"It's you." He immediately felt as stupid as that had sounded. She knew it too, because she grinned unabashedly at him.

"So I'm dead, and you, for all intents and purposes, are dead, and you came all the way to the deepest reaches of Hell to get me and all you can say is 'it's you'? Well, my reply to that is 'no, duh, Vinnie.'"

She stuck a hand in his face, and he took it, allowing her to help him to his feet. He brushed himself off, wondering what to do next. Every other answer had come to him so easily, but that might have been because he had had no choice but to participate in whatever had been thrown at him.

He stared at her dead 'body.' "What…why did I have to…I don't understand…"

She scratched her head. "Well, you're supposed to figure that out for yourself, I think, but I guess it's because you have to learn to let go of people eventually. Jeez, Vince, you've got skeletons havin' _parties_ in your closets."

He just stared at her.

She raised her hands placatingly. "Come on, you gotta admit that the irony here is _huge_. Like _whoa_ huge. You've got to break yourself to get to me. It can't all be daisies and ice cream, Vinnie. It's Hell for God's sake—wait, I made a funny." She giggled at her own joke, and he sighed.

Yuffie cocked her head at him. "Do you wanna get out of here or what? 'Cause you've still got another task to go, ya know, and we're both stuck here until you finish it."

He arched a brow. "I wasn't aware that there was anything else I was required to do."

The familiar stance: hands on hips, one shoulder higher than the other, weight improperly balanced. "Well, see, that's the problem. I'm not sure you're gonna like it all that much." She pushed a hand through her hair, tousling it.

"I'm positive that whatever you can tell me won't be any worse than…that." He flicked his gaze briefly to the dead body of Yuffie's double.

She looked away from him. "Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you. In exchange for my soul, you have to…sort of…give up your immortality."

His eyes widened and his eyebrows shot almost to his hairline. She nodded, something like resignation flickering in her eyes. "Yeah, that's what I thought. You can go on home, Vinnie. You _did_ try, and that's what matters most, you know. I guess I'll be seeing you—or actually," here, a harsh laugh, "I won't be seeing you."

She turned away from him then, and began to walk in the other direction. In a few short moments, several things went through his head.

How much had he given up to get this far? Sweat, blood, tears, and pain were what accompanied every footstep he had taken into the abyss, and it had taken everything he had in him to get even that far. Finally, he found what he was so desperately searching for, and now he was being asked to give up one more piece of himself, something else that belonged to him for this void.

Had he _still_ not given enough of himself? He had teetered on the brink of insanity through the whole process of being there, with every memory of everything he had ever done and every sin he had committed biting his ankles the whole time, and _still_ it was _not enough_?

Yuffie was right there, what he had been groping blindly in the dark for, the whole purpose he was there in the first place, _just_ out of his reach. He only needed to give one more thing. But he found that even that one thing was difficult to give. His _immortality_?

He had cursed it so many times in his life. It was something that had been given to him by Hojo, which made it bad. But what made it worse was that he would never be able to escape himself, his sins, every one of his crimes with the sweet release of death. He would have to live forever, watching everything around him he cherished die and watching everything he touched wither. The more he thought about, the more he realized he didn't want it.

He was there, she was there, and he only needed to give one more thing. If that was what it took, then so be it. No one could say he hadn't done everything.

"Yuffie." She stopped, turned around, and looked at him. Not a single emotion was betrayed on her face. She waited on him, impassive.

"Take it."

Something flitted across her face then, but before he could read into it, a light flashed so bright that it blinded him momentarily. It narrowed to a small beacon, the size of his fist, centering straight over where his heart was. From there, it seeped outwards, drenching his form in that glowing white light. A pleasant warmth settled over him, tingling throughout his whole body.

He supposed it was to prepare him for the decidedly _un_pleasant wrenching sensation that came over him directly after that. It felt like two different things had taken hold of him on each side and were pulling _hard_. Another sharp tug, and it felt as though something had come away from him, leaving an aching, empty hole where the something should have been. He fell to his knees, clutching at his chest, where it hurt the most, surprised to find that there was no blood or any type of wound. He looked exactly the same as he had before, intact, just in pain.

He breathed deeply, feeling the hot ache slowly ebb away, and looked up to see Yuffie gazing thoughtfully at him.

"It's done."

He blinked slowly and got to his feet, never taking his eyes off of her. She reached out her hand, solemn for once in her…well…not _life_, but…oh, hell, Vincent was done thinking at all. It was just too confusing.

He took the offered hand and everything went dark.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Goddammit, Valentine, _breathe_!"

Vincent's eyes shot open and he coughed, his throat burning horribly as he hacked up countless amounts of water. Someone pushed him to a sitting position and patted him on the back, helping him remove the water from his system. He panted a bit, regaining his breath, and was surprised to find that he was shivering heavily.

"Off with the cloak, Vincent, before you get hypothermia." That was Tifa. Deft hands knocked his fumbling, quaking ones out of the way and unclasped his cloak and tossed it to the side. A blanket, warm and soft was draped over him after that, and he settled into it gratefully.

Something tickled at the far reaches of his mind, niggling insistently. It eluded him briefly, but once he caught it, it smacked him straight in the face.

"Yuffie," he gasped, his eyes darting around wildly. Cloud was sitting on the ground with a bundle in his arms, clutched close to his chest. A hand landed on Vincent's shoulder and he looked up at Barret.

"Strife's got 'er, Valentine." There was a warm smile on his face, coated in approval.

Cid was on his other side, kneeling. "Ya did good, Vince. She's alive."

Red XIII spoke up from next to Cloud. "Now is the time for you to rest."

It registered that they were on the shore of the lake in the Lost City. The spires of the giant conch shell jutted into the sky a short ways away. The trees around them were luminous in the lack of light, and he realized that it was nighttime.

"How are we getting out of here?" he rasped. All the water vacating his body via his esophagus hadn't been exactly kind to his throat.

"Well, Cid's got the _Shera_ here so we'll airlift you out of here."

"Is anyone going to tell me what happened?"

"We'll give you the rundown after you've rested a bit," replied Reeve. "I don't know what all happened down there, but you look like straight hell."

The statement struck a particular chord in his brain, and Vincent let out an odd sort of giggle. And then another. Soon, his head was thrown back and he was laughing, deep and loud and fulfilling, straight from his gut.

They all just stared at him, which made him laugh even harder.

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent found himself laying in a cot in the hospital wing of the _Shera_. He hadn't let Yuffie out of his sight once since he had been wakened from death, and he refused to rest, despite the dark circles under his eyes.

It was unfortunate that he had chosen not to rest, however, because Tifa chose that time to be confusing. He had had just about enough of confusing things, but she was a woman, and he often found that women didn't give a shit about what you had had enough of.

She entered the hospital wing, her wine-colored eyes alighting on Vincent, who was gazing once more at the sleeping Yuffie. She sat on the foot of his bed, avoiding the lumps where his feet were.

"Vincent, do you have any idea how Yuffie came from the lake? I thought you hid her body…"

He looked up, resting his eyes on her. "I _did_ hide her body. I put it in my coffin in Shinra mansion."

She frowned. "Odd. Well, this whole ordeal has been _more_ than odd, but we'll have to check the mansion and see what's become of the body."

He nodded. "I expect it won't be there, but it would be a good idea to make sure nothing has happened to it."

"Vincent, there's…" Tifa hesitated, plucking at the wrinkles in the sheets. "There's something else I wanted to ask you."

"Proceed."

"Well, I…" Her eyes flickered from his face to everything else in the room and back to his face again. "Do you love her?" she blurted, gazing intently at him.

The air left him suddenly and he felt faint. That was not what he had expected. Actually, he didn't know what he had expected, but it _hadn't_ been _that_. His jaw worked, up and down, opening and closing, for a few tense moments before he could bring himself to reply.

"I…no, Yuffie and I are…no, I do not love Yuffie. We are merely friends. I would have done it for any of you."

Tifa frowned at him. "You would have? I don't think so, Vincent. I've never seen someone do what you've done for her with the kind of…of…_devotion_ you put into this task. Even _before_ she died, you were there with her almost every waking moment that you were allowed."

He swallowed, finding that his throat was very dry. "Love and devotion are two separate things, Tifa."

"There's a very fine line between love and devotion, Vincent. You've crossed it. You're playing _jump rope_ with it, as far as I can see."

Something about the statement bounced around in his head and it hit him.

_"On the contrary, Vincent. I think there's a very fine line between devotion and love…"_

Hojo had said the very same thing to him, all those ages ago. He felt very tired, all of a sudden.

"Tifa, if you will excuse me, I need rest." She knew when she was dismissed and rose to leave, giving him one last, long look. "That's fine, Vincent, but think about what I said."

Vincent laid his head back on his pillows and tried to sleep, but found he couldn't with Tifa's thoughts running around his mind.

_"There's a very fine line between love and devotion, Vincent."_

The man he once hated with every fiber of his being had said the same thing to him. The man he had once considered his greatest foe, and the man who created the hatred in him that consumed his soul with a burning, raging fire.

But now, something else was burning at him, something bright and warm and soft. It was a fire, true, but it was soothing. He couldn't put his finger on it until he glanced into the cot next to his, taking in the sight of Yuffie's sleeping face. It flared then, tickling his senses and making him blink confusedly.

_"Sometimes you gotta look to see what's right in front of you."_

He was looking now, and he saw something he'd never thought he could see again, after Lucrecia.

_"There's a very fine line between love and devotion, Vincent."_

The one man he had hated more than anything in the world had been absolutely, insanely, blindingly correct. There was a fine line between love and devotion, and Vincent found that he was practically _stomping_ on it as emotion swept over him and crashed like a tidal wave.

He figured something climactic and momentous was supposed to happen then, but he was too tired to even deal with this new revelation. He promptly went to sleep.

- - - - - - - - - -

He woke to silence. The cot next to his was empty, the blankets rumpled. Panic filled him, and he jumped out of bed, running unsteadily to the door in his blind haste, but he didn't get so much as five feet down the hall before he smacked straight into Barret.

"Whoa, hold on there, Valentine. Where's the fire?"

Vincent attempted to push past Barret, but the large black man had a firm grip on Vincent's shoulders, and even though Vincent was a good bit more than six feet tall, Barret beat him in height _and_ bulk. He stopped struggling for the moment.

"Where's Yuffie?"

An odd, crooked grin lit up Barret's face, and his hold on Vincent loosened just a little bit. "It's coo', man. Calm the hell down. You think we'd let somethin' happen to her after all you did? She's on the bridge with the rest of 'em. I was comin' to wake you up."

He let Vincent go completely then, and Vincent looked somewhere past his left ear, slightly embarrassed at the state in which Barret had caught him. "Thank you, Barret."

Vincent brushed past the larger man, hearing the heavy footsteps as he followed. When he opened the door to the bridge, he caught sight of Rocket Town not too far from the ship. They had landed, then, which was probably good, if Yuffie's airsickness was to be taken into account. He barely had time to register this before he was accosted by a lot of hugging and smiles and affectionate claps on the shoulder. When AVALANCHE had had their fill of dumping praise on him, they parted, leaving him to stare at Yuffie as if she were the rarest treasure in the world.

She smiled cheekily at him, striding up and tapping him on the cheek. "Jeez, Vinnie, if you stared any harder I might melt. Get a grip on yourself, you freak." The ninja looked at everyone around her. "Hey, you guys better have been taking care of my Wutai. And who's ruling right now? Please tell me you left it to someone _intelligent_, like Staniv. If Shake gets his hands on it, the place is likely to be in flames by now."

Laughter rose from all sides, and Vincent smiled slightly. After that, there were many questions and answers over food. Vincent told them about what had happened in his trip to the afterlife—leaving out the more personal bits—and got the "rundown" on what had happened after he had taken his plunge into the lake in the City of Ancients.

It turned out that the "rundown" had gone something like this:

Vincent had traveled to the City of Ancients, and Reeve had hopped into his private helicopter and followed after him. He got to the lake where he knew Vincent was going and saw no sign of him, but noticed the footprints in the muddy lake's edge. Frantic, he had called Cloud, shouted something about saving Vincent and to bring the _Shera_ and hung up. It turned out that Cid and the whole of AVALANCHE was already in the airship, on their way to help. Reeve had shed his business coat, kicked off his shoes and dove straight into the water.

He had to resurface for air a total of three times before he went down again and found Vincent tangled in weeds in the bottom of the lake. He had worked frantically at untangling the gunslinger while trying not to get tangled himself. He had had to come back up for air two more times before he fully freed Vincent's body and tugged it to the surface with him.

Reeve had been a lifeguard at Costa Del Sol for about five years of his younger life, so he attempted again and again to get Vincent to breathe, to show some sign of life.

In the meantime, the _Shera_ had touched down a little farther away. Cloud and co. rushed onto the scene of Reeve trying to revive Vincent, panicked and pale. Nanaki dashed back to the airship and got blankets, but while he was gone, the lake had started bubbling. Soon it had worked itself up into a giant foam, steaming and churning. Reeve didn't pause in his attempts on Vincent, but the others were amazed, watching the water.

It finally calmed, but there was something bobbing on the surface of the lake. Cloud had jumped in to retrieve it after seeing what it was and getting over the initial shock. He had paddled back pulling an unconscious but definitely breathing Yuffie Kisaragi, to all their relief. But Vincent was still not breathing, and Reeve was doing his best.

Cid, in a fit of desperation, had suddenly raised his fist and pounded Vincent on the chest, yelling "Goddammit, Valentine, _breathe_!" Vincent had started to cough then. The jolt to his body and jumpstarted his heart and ejected some of the water from his lungs. That was when he woke up and processed the scene around him.

Everyone was amazed at Vincent's side of the story, and his part took considerably longer to get out due to all the interruptions with questions. Yuffie inexplicably knew about everything he had done, but then again, Hojo had too when Vincent confronted him. It must have had something to do with being dead. When questioned about what happened when she died, Yuffie told them all with a frustrated frown that she couldn't remember anything before Vincent's arrival except a very content, warm feeling.

The stories and the heartfelt reunion went on for hours. Tifa cried on an embarrassed Yuffie and Reeve also looked decidedly teary. Red XIII didn't leave his place at Yuffie's side the whole time, allowing her to twine her hand in his mane—something he usually asked her not to do, as it made him feel much more like an animal than he wished.

Eventually, it got late, and everyone retired to their separate bunks on the ship. Vincent found that he couldn't fall asleep after all the time he had spent sleeping before, so he returned to the bridge, intending to gaze out the windows until he was tired enough to rest.

He found when he got there, however, that his usual place at the windows was being occupied. He was surprised to see that it was Yuffie who was gazing at the lights of Rocket Town from her spot, and he joined her after a moment's hesitation at the window.

His epiphany from earlier that day was threatening to overtake him, biting and scratching around in his head. After several very long minutes of silence, the air was so thick with tension that Vincent couldn't take it any longer. He whipped around to face her, and even though he knew she had to have seen his movement out of the corner of her eye, she still did not acknowledge him. The moonlight played around her face, making it seem paler than it was, and making her eyes large and luminous in the dim light.

"Yuffie…" He was trying to make his voice stop trembling. Vincent Valentine's voice did _not_ tremble. He sounded pathetic.

This time, she did look at him, waiting patiently for whatever it was he had to say, as usual.

"I…"

"You…what, Vincent?"

"I love you."

He almost stumbled over the words, they were so taboo to his senses. For a few more long moments, she didn't say anything, just looked at him. He couldn't read anything in the shadows on her face, and nervous tension thickened his throat. _Why_ was he nervous? This was very new to him.

Then, the corner of her mouth quirked upward. "…I know."

Vincent was dumbfounded. He worked his mouth, trying to form a coherent sentence, some kind of _reply_ to that. Nothing came to mind.

"Oh."

Dark amusement flickered over her features. "Close your mouth, Vincent. Your face might get stuck that way, and I like your face way too much to let that happen."

"You…knew? How?"

"Because I'm awesome. Because I'm a woman. Because I'm Yuffie. Because I'm so much cooler than you. Because I'm not an idiot, and what else am I supposed to think when you go through Hell and back again to get my eternal _soul_ back from the dead? Goddamn, Vinnie, you never could let go. Even after you killed me _yourself_,you couldn't let go, and I thought that was a bad thing, but now all I can do is thank you for it, you big fat idiot."

He stared at her, still stunned.

She laughed. "Men are idiots. You _still_ don't get it, do you?"

He shook his head slightly, flummoxed. "What do you mean?"

"You really _are_ stupid sometimes, do you realize that? I've been in love with you since the day I first saw you. Do you realize the kind of shit you put me through all these years?"

Vincent's eyes widened; he still couldn't seem to bring his brain together to say anything even halfway intelligent, which probably explained why he even asked his next question. "You never told me. Why?"

Anger flashed in her stormy gray eyes. "Because you were so caught up in the memory of a dead woman for so long that I thought I'd never have a chance. Honestly, Vincent, would you ever have considered what I had to say if I had told you then? No, you wouldn't have. Then, after the whole Deepground fiasco, I thought maybe I had a chance, but even then I knew you didn't see me as anything more than a nuisance. So I kept my mouth shut, for both our sakes."

"I'm sorry, Yuffie," he said, looking away then.

"Damn right. You're a sorry son of a bitch sometimes, Vincent Valentine, but if I could put up with you for _this_ long and still be in love with you, then I guess we're stuck with it."

"You mean…you still…" He tripped over his own hope.

Yuffie laughed softly then. "What? Want you? Not even death could have changed what I feel for you, you fathead."

"…oh." Vincent didn't think he had ever felt so undignified or moronic in his life.

She rolled her eyes. "Looks like I'm going to have to tell you what to do next too, huh?"

He blinked at her. She threw her hands into the air, exasperated, and took the three steps to close the distance between them. With a quick hand, she yanked him down by the collar and slammed his mouth to hers in the most awkward, fumbling kiss he had ever experienced.

It was the sweetest thing he had ever known.

She tasted alive, warm, and she burned him with her boundless, crackling energy, setting him aflame with it. He lost himself in her, letting go of everything he had never realized he had been holding in before, drowning in that release.

She pulled back first, and he opened his eyes slowly, reluctant to let go of the moment. She was observing him calculatingly, and he was caught off guard by that kind of look on her face. It was unfamiliar on her features. She broke into a smile at his startled look, and he could swear that smile was the second most beautiful thing he had seen in a long while.

"Yuffie, I—"

Yuffie rolled her eyes, huffing at him. "Just shut up and kiss me again, Vinnie."

Vincent Valentine was human

It was the first time in thirty years.


End file.
